Johann Friedrich Herbart : a study in pedagogics. --

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JOHANN • FRIEDRICH
• HERBART •

WILLIAMS

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BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED

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JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

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Johann Friedrich
Herbart

Study in Pedagogics

BY

A. M. WILLIAMS, M.A.

BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
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Preface

The article on Herbart in Rein's Encykhpadisches
Handbuch der Pddagogik is supplied with references
and a bibliography on a scale by which one can
measure the greatness of Herbart's influence. Potent
as that now is, it took some time to declare itself.
Seventy years have passed since the death of the
teacher-philosopher, and his General Pedagogy was
published more than a century since; but it is only
within the last forty years that his doctrines have
become popular even in Germany, while twenty
years ago his name was hardly known among
English-speaking peoples. At Jena, since 1885,
Dr. Rein has been the centre of a Herbartian pro
paganda, and has attracted teachers from all parts
of the world, among them a considerable number
of American, a smaller number of English, a still
smaller number of Scottish, teachers. An illustra
tion of the way in which Herbartianism has spread
is afforded in the writings of M. Gabriel Compayr£.
In his History of Pedagogy, first published in 1879,
he made no attempt to expound the ideas of
Herbart, contenting himself with one or two general
observations on the emphasis laid by Herbart on
the connection between psychology and pedagogy,
iii

IV PREFACE

By 1906 the spread of the new teaching led him
to devote a monograph to Herbart, and thereby to
introduce to his countrymen a great teacher whom
they were ignorant of, while the rest of the world
was eagerly studying and applying his doctrines. In
the United States Herbartianism is the fashionable
pedagogy, although already, to a certain extent,
it is being countered by the influence of Dewey.
In this country it has enthusiastic disciples, but it
has to struggle against opposition to its philosophic
groundwork and to its conception of how character
can be built up. It is prejudiced also by misunder
standings as to what Herbart means by interest and
instruction, and as to his position towards habit
and training. Moreover, his realistic account of
the growth of mind is repugnant to some who
turn with more appreciation to Hegel, whose influ
ence in education is beginning to be felt both in
the United States and here.

This little volume offers in brief an account of
Herbart's views on the theory and practice of edu
cation, and of the way in which these are related
to his philosophy. It is meant to serve as an in
troduction to fuller study of a great subject. The
gradual spread of Herbartianism makes it imperative
that teachers and others interested in education
should understand what it means. Compayr6 is
"convinced it will last and proceed still further;
that a day will arrive when there will be found in
other lands besides Switzerland and Germany, even
in the village schools, hard-working teachers who

PREFACE V

have recourse to Herbart for safe guidance, or at
least for suggestive inspiration, fitted to sustain
them in practical teaching". A movement like this
must be examined with care by those responsible
for education. For the teacher it is still more
important to learn that underlying all his work is
a theory of man and of life. To Herbart this is
a vital truth. To him "education is not a trade
like other trades; it is a sacred mission". To feel
this is to make one diffident of one's sufficiency for
a calling so lofty and so exacting. Yet without such
a feeling how can one sustain the daily toil and the
many disappointments of the schoolroom ? Herbart
seems specially worthy of attention just because he
regards the teacher as a living epistle as well as a
prepotent influence. Really to believe this, and to
labour to realize it, is to find in teaching one of
the noblest and most fascinating pursuits.

Contents

Page

INTRODUCTION - - - - - - 7

LIFE OF HERBART - - -

HERBART'S LOGIC -

HERBART'S METAPHYSICS - - - - 20

HERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY 22

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY - - - - - 55

JOHANN FRIEDRICH
HERBART

Herbart is one of a notable triad who
found in philosophy the groundwork of a
theory and practice of education. plato^
Plato's speculation on Ideas Hegel,
moulded the educational scheme
of the Republic and the Laws, and in
formed his teaching in "the olive grove
of Academe " ; it is Grote's opinion that
" among his contemporaries he must have
exercised greater influence through his
school than through his writings ". Hegel
drew from that subtly-woven philosophy
whose secret is possibly still to seek, the
pedagogy that underlies his school ad
dresses and the principles that guided him
in his office as Rector of Nttrnberg Gym
nasium. Herbart took an active part in
the philosophical disputes of his age ; as
the " father of modern psychology " he

8 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

became the author of a scientific pedagogy;
as private tutor, private decent, and uni
versity professor he had wide-ranging ex
perience as a teacher.

LIFE OF HERBART1

Herbart's father, a lawyer in Oldenburg,

where he commended himself to his fellow

citizens as a reliable man

b. at Oldenburg, r i • i rr •

4th May, 1776; O* business and affairs,
d. at Gottingen, seems to have counted for

llth Aug. 1841. ,. , . TT i , , ,

little in rlerbart s develop
ment as compared with the future phi
losopher's mother. A woman of marked
mental power, she transmitted this to
her son, and did him a further service by
watching over his early education. Owing
to a certain delicacy of health, caused by
falling into a vessel of very hot water,
Herbart did not go to school till he was
in his thirteenth year; and during this
important period his mother paid the
closest attention to his upbringing, choosing
his tutor with judicious care, sitting with
him during the lesson hours, and even

1 Special acknowledgment is due to Miss M. K. Smith's
translation of Herbart's Text-book in Psychology ; Mr. and Mrs.
Felkin's translation of his Science of Education; Dr. Davidson's
A New Interpretation of Herbarfs Psychology.

LIFE OF HERB ART 9

learning Greek that she might understand
her boy's work and if necessary help him
with it. At a later stage she accompanied
him to Jena when he entered the univer
sity there, and helped him to make the
acquaintance of such men as Schiller. All
this made for the presentation to Herbart's
youthful mind of a mass of well-chosen
ideas, and the son never ceased to be
grateful to his mother for all he owed to
her.

Herbart made an admirable pupil. He
forbids us to speak of innate faculties, but
very soon he gave evidence Early

Of UnUSUal Capacity. A Characteristics.

powerful memory, a ready and penetrating
comprehension, ability to think clearly and
accurately, were splendid qualifications for
the life of a scholar; while his relish for
mathematics and physics, for literature and
music, testified at once to the range of his
tastes and powers, and also to the richness
of his environment. It is easy to see that
just as Locke's profession and constitution
led him to dwell long on the physical side
of education, Herbart's own experience
underlies his theory of " many - sided
interest ". Like Macaulay he saw himself
in every schoolboy, who thus became a

10 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

being with a high potential of development.
In the manner of John Stuart Mill, Her-
bart began logic and was handling philo
sophical questions before he was in his
teens.

From 1788 to 1794 Herbart was a pupil
in the Gymnasium at Oldenburg, and
School and gratified his teachers by the
University, assiduity with which he laid
broad and deep the foundations of his
studies. To exceptional capacity he added
unremitting industry; he combined a taste
for ancient learning with a keen interest
in the intellectual movement of his time;
while all was ordered by a mind to which
logic was congenial.

From 1794 to 1797 he was at the Uni
versity of Jena studying philosophy, in
the golden prime of German thought.
Fichte was lecturing at Jena, Kant at
Konigsberg, Schelling and Hegel were
thinking out their systems; and among
them those thinkers were building up an
empire against which Napoleon's whiffs of
grapeshot availed nothing.

The great problems of philosophy were
faced by Herbart with the confidence of
an original mind, and quite early he as
serted his independence of his teachers.

LIFE OF HERBART II

Solitary wrestling with the issues raised
led him to question the positions of the
idealists. While still a youth of twenty
he found himself unable to accept the
teaching of Fichte or the theories of Schel-
ling; and a few years later, in 1802, when
he was proceeding to the doctor's degree,
he formally opposed the doctrine of Kant.
But it must not be supposed that there
was any touch of arrogance in the young
scholar ; he had the warmest admiration
for the philosophers he criticized, but the
effect of their teaching was to provoke in
his mind a contrary line of thought. He
was essentially a realist, resting on experi
ence; and his view of education, towards
theories of which he was already turning,
led him to reject the idea of transcendental
freedom, of a will that can will what it
ought independently of all influence. He
figured to himself the individual acted on
by, and reacting against, the whole body of
experiences that make up his environment.
At this time, too, his reading of Homer
led him to form a decided opinion as to
the fitness of that poet to supply material
for the early curriculum.

In 1797 Herbart left the University to
become private tutor to the three sons of

12 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

Herr von Steiger, the governor of Inter-
laken. It was a happy opportunity for both
Pirgt instructor and pupils. On the

Experience one hand, Herbart, who had
m Teaching. ajreac[y perceived the connection
between education and philosophy, was
stimulated by contact with growing minds
to pursue a fruitful enquiry, and, from the
circumstances of the case, had leisure to
develop and to check his theory and
method of education. He saw how in
timately related to the teacher's work is
psychology, and therefore made a close
study of that subject ; and, as he proceeded
to apply it in fixing his curriculum and
teaching the subjects chosen, he found his
way to some of his most characteristic
doctrines. He refused to make the com
mon distinction between instruction and
education ; through the first he aimed at
. achieving the second. He found in the
1 Odyssey the ideal reading-book, capable of
\awakening interest, because it appeals to
I the universal spirit of youth. He did for
his three charges what had been done for
himself; he touched their minds at various
points in order to bring to birth in them a
many-sided interest. He saw, moreover,
how much the school depends on the

LIFE OF HERBART 13

home. On the other hand, the boys were
taught by one whose interest in them and
in their common work was itself a most
powerful stimulus, while they had the
further advantage of a tutor in whom
knowledge and a natural taste for teaching
were combined with scientific method and
a zeal for thoroughness. Herbart started
from carefully gathered facts, including
observations on the character of his pupils,
and was ever guided by these in determin
ing principles and methods. His success is
indicated in the five letters that have been
preserved out of the twenty-four in which
he reported to the father on the studies
and progress of the boys, and in the
friendly relations he established and long
maintained with his pupils.

By 1799 Switzerland was caught in the
maelstrom of the French Revolution, and
the turmoil interfered with such
peaceful labours as Herbart's.
Moreover, philosophy, his early love, was
calling to him with a voice not to be de
nied; and his recent contact with youthful
minds had served to sharpen his zest for
the subject that, in his view, was insepar
able from education. Before leaving
Switzerland he visited Pestalozzi at Burg-

14 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

dorf, and found there an inspired man
applying, as well as his lack of training
would permit, those principles of method
that Herbart bases on his psychology.
Both saw in sense-perception the begin
ning of mental life, and therefore recog
nized the importance of the child's experi
ence, while this led again to the significance
of the teacher as responsible for the ma
terial to be presented to the child. Both
saw also that there is an order in which
subjects should be introduced into the
curriculum, and that this is determined
not merely by the relation of the subjects
to each other, but still more by their har
mony with the growing needs and capacity
of the child. But what Pestalozzi divined
rather than clearly comprehended and
turned to use in the elementary stage,
Herbart had thoroughly worked out as
a method applicable to the whole field of
education.

After spending two years at Bremen,
where he extended his studies in philos-
Gbttingen, ophy and got further experience
1802-9. m teaching, Herbart proceeded
to Gottingen, where he lived from 1802
to 1809. By this time his mind was
teeming with ideas on education. When

LIFE OF HERBART 15

he offered himself at Gftttingen for his
doctor's degree, the theses he presented
were purely pedagogical, and, on becoming
a lecturer in the University, he discoursed
on pedagogy as well as philosophy. His
income was of the smallest, but he was
cheered by such proofs that his lectures
were appreciated that he refused promo
tion to a higher post at Heidelberg Uni
versity, and amid all the distractions and
privations of the Napoleonic wars pursued
his career of student and teacher. His
system of thought was rapidly formulating
itself. In 1802 he published pamphlets
on Pestalozzi's How Gertrude teaches her
Children and The A B C of Sense-Perception,
and revealed the importance he attached
to observation. These were soon followed
by his two notable works on educational
theory, The ^Esthetic Revelation of the World
(1804) and General Pedagogy (1806). In
addition, during this fruitful period he
published works on metaphysics, logic,
and ethics.

In 1 809 Herbart was called to the Chair ^
of Philosophy at Konigsberg, and he re
garded it as a peculiar honour Konigsberg,
that he should be thought 1809-33.
worthy to occupy a position that had been

l6 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

held by Kant. For nearly a quarter of
a century Herbart lived a strenuous life
at Konigsberg, devoting himself particu
larly to completing his system of psy
chology and developing the practical side
of his pedagogy. In 1816 he published
his Text-boo J^ in Psychology, in 1824 Psy
chology as Science, in 1828 General Meta
physics, which completed the statement of
his case against current philosophical views.
These works by no means represent the
whole of Herbart's literary activity during
this prolific Konigsberg period, nor did
speculation and authorship exhaust his
abounding energy. He lectured with
ever-growing popularity, and the crowded
audiences stimulated him to give them of
his best. Recognition of his capacity and
reputation came freely from many quarters,
and Herbart found himself possessed of
"honour, love, obedience, troops of
friends". He was supported in his
manifold activities by a happy home life:
in 1 8 1 1 he married Mary Drake, the
daughter of an English merchant resident
in Germany, and she proved a veritable
helpmeet for him.

At Kftnigsberg Herbart reduced to
practice Kant's saying, "We need Nor-

(0359)

LIFE OF HERBART 17

mal Schools and experimental schools",
and there started a movement that is
only now receiving adequate Herbart's
attention. He saw that to talk Seminary.
pedagogy is not enough, that, while edu
cation is a science it is also an art, and
he proceeded to devise a scheme under
which his students could apply and test
his theories. What he aimed at was a
combination of demonstration and criti
cism lessons with observation and ex
periment. A Teachers' College ought to
provide not only lectures on the theory
and history of education, and opportunities
for seeing model lessons and getting prac
tice in teaching, but also a field for obser
vation and experiment, where facts can be
collected and theories and methods proved
and tested. It is one of the great things
Herbart did that he planted in the minds
of some at least the conviction that in this
kind of laboratory work lies the hope of
building up a really sound system of
pedagogy. Herbart found in his semi
nary a place where he could demonstrate
his favourite thesis that the best reading-
book for boys is the Odyssey. Like
Hegel he found in the classics the choicest
nutriment for the growing mind.

(0359) 2

18 JOIIANN FRIEDRICII HERBART

By 1831 the Prussian authorities were
looking askance at the Universities as
Gbttingen again, nurseries of a dangerous
1833-41. liberalism, and innovators

in education were included in the con
demnation visited on all progress. Some
twenty years later the time was to come in
Prussia when Kindergartens were to be
prohibited because of their revolutionary
character, and Froebel was to be suspect.
In Herbart's day the reactionary spirit
was strong enough to deprive him of the
nomination to the Chair of Philosophy at
Berlin in succession to Hegel, and he
was glad to leave Konigsberg and go to
Gottingen to take the place of Schulze,
who died in 1833. At Gottingen Her-
bart continued his literary labours and
lectured to large and appreciative audi
ences. On August 9, 1841, he lectured as
usual, and there was no hint of the fatal
apoplexy that struck him down two days
later and caused almost instant death.

HERBART'S LOGIC

Herbart's view of logic as a body of
general method suggests how the subject
may be turned to account by the teacher.

X

HERB ART'S LOGIC 19

An illustration was given by J. S. Mill
in his Rectorial Address at St. Andrews
when he spoke of grammar Logic & body
as " elementary logic ". The of General
epithet "elementary" is not Method'
very happy, but the words serve to remind
one of what is involved in teaching formal
grammar. The subject calls for some
familiarity with the principles of definition
and classification, for knowledge of how
to proceed to construct a definition, of
how to test a definition, of what constitutes
a sound system of classes. Further, what
logic has to say about names, concepts, pro
positions, and arguments, is valuable to
the teacher, helping him to clear think
ing and clear speaking, and enabling him
to guide aright the pupil's search for
knowledge. Again, logic concerns itself
with observation and experiment and the ex
perimental methods as instruments for dis
covering truth, the relation of the sciences
to each other, and the general method
of ordering thought — all supremely im
portant to the teacher. Logic is therefore
properly made a subject of study at train
ing centres for teachers, though possibly
there is still room for improving its cor
relation with school method.

2O JOHANN FRIEDRICH IIERBART

HERBART'S METAPHYSICS

In Herbart's time the dominant philos
ophy was idealism. All that is, was looked
The Reign °n as the creation or the expres-
of Idealism. sion of mind. As regards the
external world, Kant expressed the position
thus : " There are no other than thinking
beings, the other things which we believe
ourselves to perceive are only ideas of
thinking beings, ideas in fact to which
there is no corresponding object outside of
or beyond the thinking beings"; that is,
philosophy would not accept the existence 1
of things independent of their relation to
being perceived. If, in the ultimate ana- )
lysis, this seems to limit knowledge to the
sensations of the individual mind, there is
an equal difficulty in assuming an outer
world as the starting-point of experience,
since this takes for granted our knowledge
of things in themselves apart from a per
ceiving mind.

In his attempt to define what is meant
by the real, Herbart began, in the manner
What is of Socrates, with an examination
a Real? of concepts, with a search for the
true meaning of words. All knowledge

HERBARTS METAPHYSICS 21

rests upon experience, but the resulting
concepts are contradictory, and the contra
dictions must be cleared away if know
ledge is to be in harmony with experience.
One of the contradictions alleged by Her-
bart consists in this, that a thing is thought
of both as a unity and as a multiplicity,
that is, an assemblage of qualities. Since
the multiplicity is a fact of experience it
must be accepted, and is to be explained
as an aggregate of simple real existences
united in a formal, but not a real unity.
This is Herbart's theory of atoms or
"reals" — simple, unchanging, independent
beings, which have an independent exis
tence and at the same time can be cognised.
After this fashion a bridge is built be
tween idealism and realism, and substan
tially this is the view favoured The
by Bergson, who expresses his Middle Way.
own position thus: "Matter is an aggre
gate of c images '. And by * image ' we
mean a certain existence which is more
than that which the idealist calls a repre
sentation^ but less than that which the
realist calls a thing, — an existence placed
halfway between the 'thing' and the
c representation '." Bergson utters a warn
ing that the readers of Herbart must keep

22 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

in mind, namely, to make sure that objec
tions to his views do not imply a return to
either idealism or realism.

As Lotze saw, a difficulty inherent in
this theory of absolute atoms is to explain

Disturbance and h°W * ^g while preserv-

Self-preservation ing its identity may yet
of the Real. UHdergo change. Herbart's
solution has the merit of novelty, and has
a bearing on his favourite doctrine of
apperception. All phenomena are the
result of the interaction of two or more
"reals", which are by hypothesis unchange
able in their quality, so that the " new "
* must spring from the condition of recip
rocal opposition.

HERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY

In psychology as everywhere Herbart
takes as his starting-point experience.
Psychology Following Locke's plan, he
and looks into his mind and finds

Experience. there self-consciousness, and in
his own manner proceeds to "rectify" this
concept. He finds the notion contradictory,
inasmuch as the self is not only the ob
server — the subject - self, but also the
observed — the object-self; there is appar-

HERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY 23

ently, therefore, a duality, and yet there is
a unity, since the observer is identical with
the observed. Further, while the analysis
of the self yields nothing but transient
modes of consciousness — feeling, thought,
and will, a difficulty is felt in calling these
states the self, and the consciousness of
identity is held to involve the assumption
of an underlying substance to which all the
independent phenomena of consciousness
are referred. It is the purpose of his
psychology to resolve these contradictions
by determining the true nature of soul and
of conscious states.

The soul1 is a simple unchanging essence
or being, without a multiplicity of states,
activities, or powers. It is one of Soul
the "reals" of which Herbart regards defined,
the universe as composed, and has its seat
in the pons of the brain ; on this Wundt
remarks that, if one were asked to lay one's
ringer upon a part of the brain that by its
complexity of structure and the number of
elements it compresses into a small space
should illustrate the composite character of
the physical substrate of the mental life,
and therewith show the absurdity of any

1 Soul is here used as equivalent to mind. In strict speech
soul is the mental substance lying behind mind.

24 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBARt

attempt to discover a simple seat of mind,
one could hardly hope to make a happier
choice. The question, however, of the
locality of the soul does not affect the
conception of what it is. Its very nature
prevents it from being thought of as a
substratum of faculties, or from being
known in itself apart from its presentations.1
These are its self-preservations, due to the
interaction between the soul, or ego, and
the other "reals" of the universe.

The soul, then, has no innate ideas or
faculties; it is not known at first as intel
lect, will, feeling, for all mental processes
are born of the interactions among pre
sentations, and these have come from with-
-f out. They come, in the first instance,
through the senses, and constitute elements
of which other presentations are composed.
From the interaction of the presentations
arise abstraction, judgment, comparison,
reason, self-consciousness, memory, ima
gination, &c., the whole body of faculties
by which the mind is known, and which
are therefore derivative and not primary.

Herbart's view of the soul has been
severely criticized. Compayre, for example,

1 Presentation is used by Herbart to include both perception
and idea as the mental picture of an object not actually sensed.

HERBARTrS PSYCHOLOGY 25

j quotes his description: "It has originally
I no ideas, desires, or feelings. Itself knows
I nothing of itself nothing of \s this a
; the external world. Still more, real Soul?
| it has no forms of perception, such as Kant
conceived, no laws of will or of action, no
sort of predisposition remotely related even
to all that; its nature is entirely unknown"
—and then observes that "one might just
as well say that it does not exist ". Com-
payre speaks of the soul as looking on at
the interplay of ideas, and of Herbart's
having transferred to the ideas the activity
of which he has deprived the soul. Now,
in reading this and other similar criticism,
one has to remember that to Herbart the
soul was "a real", and that one's first duty
is to try to get at Herbart's own point of
view. In the first place, Herbart was
neither an idealist nor a materialist; he
believed in the existence of "reals" under
lying all phenomena, and he denounced
materialism as an absurdity. In the par
ticular case of the soul, Herbart postulated
a simple homogeneous monad as the "real"
underlying all mental phenomena. What
exactly did he mean? His position that
the underlying "reals" cannot be sensed
is a perfectly familiar one. If we take

26 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

away from gold its attributes — hardness,
colour, weight, ductility, and so on — what
is the thing itself that is left? Clearly
" its nature is entirely unknown ", and
hence two very different estimates of what
it is. " To me," says Reid, " nothing
seems more absurd than that there should
be extension without anything extended,
or motion without anything moved ; " on
the other hand, Fichte holds that "Attri
butes synthetically united give substance,
and substance analysed gives attributes ; a
continued substratum, or supporter of attri
butes, is an impossible conception ". In
this dispute Herbart is with those that
assert the existence of " reals " behind all
phenomena, although he admits that we
are conscious only of phenomena. The
peculiarity of his position, however, as
regards the soul is that he looks on know
ing, feeling, and willing as derivative and
not original states, and this is thought to
be tantamount to deposing the soul as a
" real ". According to current psychology
the soul, or mind, is known in its earliest
state as intellect, will, feeling; the question
as to what, if anything, underlies those is
left open, but it is not evident that, as
regards the assumption of a mental sub-

HERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY 2?

stance, there is anything to differentiate
Herbart's theory from that of any other
philosopher that makes this assumption.
Admittedly the soul is known only by its
functions, direct knowledge being impos
sible; but this does not imply, and Herbart
does not teach, that there was no pre-exis-
tence prior to the manifestation of activity.
In his account of the cosmogony of the
Babylonian poem Enuma elish Dr. Johns
writes: "Then the gods are manifested;
the word does not mean 'come into being'
simply, for it is used of the stars appearing
at night and implies pre-existence ". In
like manner, on Herbart's theory, the soul,
although pre-existing, is known only as
functioning, and, although the functions
as we know them are derivative, they spring
from the various relations of the soul to
other "reals"; and these relations are due
to its simple quality. Whatever one may
think of the theory, it does not imply that
there is no soul, or that the soul, having
once acted, thereupon, as it were, retires
from business, and allows the presentations
to follow their own devices. On the con
trary the soul M, and is to be found among
the presentations.

This question involves another, that

28 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

of individuality,1 which Herbart's critics

Does Herbart W?ul(? dei?7 aS. a possible im-

recognize plication in his theory. On

Individuality? thjs subject Herbart himself

is most emphatic. " The individuality of
the youth ", he says, " reveals itself more
and more under the teacher's efforts, and
fortunate is he (the teacher) if that in
dividuality in no way combats his efforts,
or, by giving them a crooked direction,
causes something different to be developed,
which neither teacher nor pupil would de
sire." Again, he draws attention to "a
negative rule in relation to the aim of
education, which is as important as it is
difficult to observe, i.e. to leave the in
dividuality untouched as far as possible".
It would be easy to multiply such quota
tions, but these two will suffice to indicate
Herbart's own view of what he thought
his theory of the soul implied. One may
of course still ask whether he was entitled
to think so. There are two questions:
Does his theory of the soul, or mind, allow
for an original individuality? Does his
theory of the growth of mind leave room

1 It is argued that, on Herbart's theory, the same experiences
should produce the same type of mind, that is, minds without
individual characteristics.

HERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY 29

for individuality? As regards the first,
the presentative activities by which the
soul is known are the consequences of its
relations to other "reals", and the power
of entering into these relations constitutes
the original individuality. As regards the
second, Herbart says : " The mind of an
adult, consisting of knowledge and imagin
ings, of resolves and doubts, of good,
bad, strong, weak, conscious and uncon
scious opinions and inclinations, is put
together differently in the cultured and
uncultured man, in Germans, Frenchmen,
and Englishmen ; how it is put together,
the individuality of the man determines".
This complex reveals the soul as func
tioning, and in the development of its
functioning the development of the soul
is seen, since the soul is not separable
from its presentative activities. The con
tinuity of these activities constitutes that
identity which marks mental personality,
or individuality in the sense of the self.
Individuality is also used to mean the
traits that distinguish one individual from
another, and it is in this sense that Her
bart uses it in the passages quoted above.
According to Herbart the soul has no
innate natural talents or faculties what-

3O JOIIANN FRIEDRICTI IIERBART

ever, either for the purpose of receiving

or for the purpose of producing; and this

conception of the soul is held to

Faculties. , r * i A i r i

be ratal to such views or educa
tion as take it to be a process of draw
ing out or of training the latent powers of
the child. Objection, therefore, would be
taken to the definition of education given
by the founders of the Prussian National
System, namely, " the harmonious and
equable evolution of the human powers",
on the ground that the powers are not
there to be evolved but have to be created.
"We still hear people ", says Professor
Welton, " talk of training various faculties
by special kinds of mental work, as if these
mysterious powers were independent organs
which could be trained separately by exer
cise — as, for instance, the arm could be
trained apart from the rest of the body, and,
once trained, could be used to do any form
of appropriate work." Professor Welton's
objection lies against language that implies
the training of isolated powers — he admits
that the mind as a whole can be trained—
but it expresses the opinion of Herbartians
with regard to the theory that a boy should
study mathematics in order to become a
good reasoner. As they view the matter,

HERBARTS PSYCHOLOGY 31

the only power the mind can receive from a
subject as an instrument " is the particular
instrument's power, but not power in the
abstract". Dr. Davidson takes grammar
as an example, and states the case thus:
"The subject grammar, as an instrument,
will work on and modify in some way the
object — mind; but it will do so only as
a grammatical instrument, and the result
will be a grammatical result".

The idea of training is so persistent in
educational theory and practice that some
attempt must be made to realize clearly
the point at issue. According to Herbart
we must stop short at the facts of inner
experience, that is, sensation is unknown
to us before we have sensed, will before
we have willed; the faculties are merely
generalizations from experience, and to
give them an independent existence is a
form of Conceptualism. Wundt thinks
Herbart's objections go too far and pre
vent us from attributing any effect to
gravity as a cause, and that, if the facts
of the inner experience are to be termed
manifestations of mind, it is the result
of a natural conceptual construction to
speak of faculties when the effect and the
cause are both within the object. More-

32 JOHANN FRIEDRICII HERBART

over Herbart admits the concept force,
but makes a distinction between it and
faculty. Wundt gives reasons why the
distinction is valid between the concept
of force as a concept of relation and the
concept of faculty as a force that awaits an
opportunity to produce its effect, but he
regards as a mere hypothesis Herbart's
contention that the idea is the real and
only contents of the mind, and that feel
ings, emotions, impulses, are merely the
resultants of the momentary interactions
of ideas, and denies that it is supported by
the exact analysis of experience. He also
points out, as Professor Welton has just
done, that Herbart's "reduction of all
mental processes to ideation is a survival
from the intellectualism of previous psy
chological systems".

The mere fact that we are not conscious
of faculties prior to experience would not
be regarded by all thinkers as conclusive
proof that they are not innate; those, for
example, that hold the idea of space to
be intuitive might admit that we are not
conscious of this idea prior to knowledge
of extended things. But, without going
further into the region of speculation, we
may ask whether, on any theory of the

HERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY 33

mind, the doctrine of formal training is
untenable, whether to hold this doctrine
really implies a faculty psychology. It is
common enough to speak of training the
memory, but it is extremely doubtful
whether the exercise of the memory in
any particular direction improves memory
in general. " The memory for places is
intensified by habitual attention, the con
sequence of our special avocations ; an
engineer or an artist remembers places, not
by superior general memory, nor even by
particular memory, but by the strain and
preference of attention, accompanied by
neglect of other matters. Instead, there
fore, of speaking of the cultivation of the
faculty of memory, we should simply con
sider the means of fostering some definite
class of acquisitions, according to the es
tablished laws of Retentiveness " (Bain).
Dr. Stout's remark that " Exercise of the
memory in the study of languages will do
little to improve it for the retention of
chemical formulae ", means that we cannot
develop by the study of one subject a
memory-power applicable to another sub
ject that does not supply identical or
analogous experiences. The same kind of
criticism applies to the injunction to culti-

(0359) 3

34 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

vate the judgment. A judge of horses
has to attend to a variety of points, — to
note differences and agreements, to apply
an ideal standard, and so on. At a higher
level the literary critic who undertakes to
compare Burns and Goethe as lyrists is
engaged in a similar task, but he and the
judge of horses are not interchangeable;
either would cut a poor figure if entrusted
with the duties of the other. In both cases
we have a result of special knowledge and
experience, which is not properly speaking
the cultivation of a faculty. Is there no
thing, then, gained in any study that is not
limited to the study itself? Is there not
such a thing as mental discipline ? Un
doubtedly there is. We learn to arrange
in the most helpful way the points and
circumstances to be compared, to assemble
for examination the particulars relevant
to a definition, to test the definition, to
handle the syllogistic forms and the in
ductive methods, but these things are
learned by learning them. It comes, then,
to this, that formal training is a training
in form as an object of training. Botany,
for example, may yield only information
about plants, but it is capable also of
yielding information about method, pre-

HERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY 35

eminently about the methods of classifica
tion; but it is quite possible for a student
to get the first kind of information, and
little or none of the second in such a way
that he can apply it elsewhere. This is
because the second kind has not been
attended to. Formal training, therefore, is
not an inevitable by-product of some other
educational process such as learning mathe
matics ; it is itself an educational process
requiring separate consideration, such as it
receives in a very special degree in logic.
Still less is it a sharpening of some entity
named faculty; nor is it a process of draw
ing out, but one of building up.

What about moral training ? Here
especially a distinction is made between
form and content, between an inner and an
outer experience, between that which comes
to us and the mode in which we meet it.
Yet the training cannot be separated from
the material of training. If we train a
child to curb certain tendencies and to give
free scope to others, these active impulses
have an object; they do not operate in'
vacuo. The practical question is whether,
as time passes, there emerges from tried
situations something that will meet untried
situations. The child is given to instan-

36 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

taneous action ; the adult has learned, more
or less adequately, to deliberate, and has
learned this from experience of the ill con
sequences of haste. Thus, when confronted
with a new situation, the adult is guided
by past experience to handle it promptly
if it resembles others he has previously
dealt with, or to proceed cautiously if it
presents unfamiliar features. In either case,
he shows the result of training, which is to
be explained, however, not as the sharpen
ing or the drawing out of a faculty, but as
the accumulation of experience,

Is there anything besides experience ?
According to Helvetius, " Everything that
we have and everything that we
are, we owe to the external world ;
nor is man himself aught else but what he
is made by the objects that surround him".
Minds are different solely because they
have come under different influences, so
that it should be possible to determine the
circumstances that go to the1 formation of
a poet and to make Shakespeares a drug in
the market ! On such a view it would be
unnecessary to discuss the effect of heredity
on a child's character, which would be
independent of the parents*. At present
there is an acute dispute as to whether the

HERBARTS PSYCHOLOGY 37

modifications induced in the lifetime of
individuals are transmissible to their off
spring, but, if Helvetius be right, the dis
cussion is a waste of time, since inheritance
is then not a factor in the education of the
child, which depends wholly on the en
vironment. The other extreme is repre
sented by Schopenhauer, who is of opinion
that " Education can make nothing of a

man".

As we have seen, Herbart denies to the^)
soul innate or inborn talents or powers, j
and claims that all mental phenomena arise V
from presentations, and in so doing would
seem to make education independent of
heredity and omnipotent in the forma
tion of character. There are, however, two
qualifications of this extreme position. On
the one hand, he finds the starting-point
of advancing culture in individuality and
the horizon of the individual as deter
mined by opportunity. On the other hand,
bodily differences (due partly to inheritance
and partly to individual variation) are re
flected in psychical manifestations ; the
body may check or stimulate the mind and
thus affect the process of education.

The presentative activities of the soul
reveal it to us as far as it can be known

38 JOHANN FRIEDRICU HERBART

at all ; they are the soul in action.
These presentative activities are the con
tents of consciousness, pre-

Presentations. . . , i T -r

sentations, ideas, and Herbart
explains how these behave towards each
other. In consciousness they combine in
two ways. Red clover has two well-
known characteristics, its bright colour
and its sweet taste ; the presentations-
redness and sweetness — are said to form
a complex ; along with these presentations,
so unlike that they admit of no com
parison, is another — greenness — which
forms a contrast to redness, and unites
with it in what Herbart calls a blending,
or fusion. " Complexes may be complete ;
blendings (fusions) from their nature must
always be (more or less) incomplete."
An example of a complex is supplied in
the mother-tongue, words and thoughts
being so closely connected that we seem
to think by means of words ; an example
of a blending is the presentation of a spire
and that of its aesthetic relation. There
may be opposition between presentations
so that they tend to arrest each other or
to exclude each other from consciousness.
Thus, while one is examining the red
clover, the song of the lark may be heard,

HERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY 39

and there is a struggle between the op
posing presentations, with the result prob
ably in this particular case that both are
diminished in intensity, but neither is
wholly driven below the threshold of
consciousness. On the other hand, if we
suppose that the sight of the clover and
the song of the lark are experiences in
moments of relaxation from toil, all that
belongs to our accustomed labours is for
the time below the threshold of con
sciousness, but ready to rise up again as
the arresting conditions are removed. "All
the concepts (presentations) which, as we
are accustomed to say, the memory pre
serves, and which we well know can
upon the slightest occasion be reproduced,
are in a state of incessant striving to rise,
although the condition of consciousness
is not at all affected by them." It is an
essential part of Herbart's theory that
presentations are indestructible, for they
are the soul-activity, and to destroy this
would be to destroy the soul itself. " The
presentation must yield without being
destroyed ; that is, the real presentation
is changed into an effort to present itself/'
In other words, as soon as the arrest is
removed, the presentation by its own effort

40 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

will again make its appearance in conscious
ness.

The discussion has now reached Her-
bart's great doctrine of Apperception, the
process whereby new know
ledge is interpreted through
the old, and it becomes possible to make
new acquisitions. Dr. Stout defines apper
ception as " the act by which a mental
system appropriates a new element ". The
" mental system " is the whole group of
complexes, blendings, and oppositions,
built up into an " apperception mass ", or
"circle of thought", so that all mental
activity is a reaction between our new
experience and our old. " After a con
siderable number of presentations in all
kinds of combinations is present, every
new act of perception must work as an
excitant by which some will be arrested,
others called forward and strengthened."
In other words, certain ideas already ap-
perceived lay hold on the new idea with
which they have some affinity and make
it part of the apperception mass ; their
power to do this will depend upon the
thoroughness with which they themselves
have been apperceived, and that depends
on the efficiency of the teaching.

HERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY 41

" So far as it represents or conceives, the
soul is called mmd\ so far as it feels and
desires, it is called the heart, or
disposition. The disposition of the
heart, however, has its source in the mind
— in other words, feeling and desiring are
conditions, and, for the most part, change
able conditions of presentations." Herbart
speaks here of three functions of the soul j
—intellect, feeling, and jwill, the second I
and the third being dependent on the first,
and all being the product of presentations.
The interaction of the presentations gives
birth to all the phenomena of intellect-
conception, judgment, reasoning, &c.

The relation of feeling to presentations
is set forth in Herbart's explanation of
the origin of pleasant feeling. " A

D • PT . Feeling.

presentation comes forward into
consciousness by its own strength, at the
same time being called forward by several
helping representations. Since each of
these helps has its own measure of time
in which it acts, then the helps may
strengthen one another against a possible
resistance, but they cannot increase their
own velocity. The movement in advanc
ing takes place only with that velocity
which is the greatest among several pre-

42 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

sentations meeting together, but it is favoured
by all the rest. This favouring is part of
the process which takes place in conscious
ness, but in no way is it anything re
presented or conceived. Hence it can
only be called a feeling — without doubt
a feeling of pleasure. Here is the source
of the cheerful disposition, especially of
joy in successful activity." The pheno
menon thus described is familiar enough.
It is, for example, the joy with which
we make a fresh step in learning, the
satisfaction of utilizing the ideas we already
possess to add to our store. If Herbart's
mode of expression means only that when
the soul functions as intellect, it also
functions as feeling, there is no need to
cavil at it. " The very same state of mind
may have both an intellectual and an
emotional side ; indeed, this is a usual
occurrence. And, like many things that
are radically contrasted, as day and night,
these two distinct facts of our nature pass
into one another by a gradual transition,
so that an absolute line of separation is
not always possible ; a circumstance that
does not invalidate the genuineness of their
mutual contrast." But Herbart seems to
mean something more than this, namely,

HERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY 43

that feeling is only a mode of the presenta
tions. Feelings, he says, "are changeable
conditions of presentations ", so that, as the
presentations change, the feelings change,
and this is true. As one becomes more
intellectual, one's whole emotional attitude
becomes modified, but this concomitant
variation proves at most a causal con
nection; which is probably quite enough
for Herbart's purpose, namely, the reach
ing of the whole mental life through
instruction. It is equally true that to
cultivate the feelings is to cultivate the
intellect, that, for example, as a child's
pleasure in looking at pictures grows, its
intellectual activity in relation to pictures
also grows ; this is so even although it has
to be admitted that no pleasure at all in
relation to pictures would be possible in
the absence of presentations. This is only
an illustration of the reciprocal relation of
intellect and feeling ; in the same way,
although reasoning presupposes judging,
it is nevertheless often present after a
fashion in simple acts of judging. It
should be noted, further, that the sensa
tions of organic life, those connected with
the processes of circulation, respiration,
and digestion, for example, "contribute

44 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

little of the permanent forms and imagery
employed in our intellectual processes " ;
and this point is hardly met by Herbart's
classification of them as " feelings that
arise from the nature of that which is
felt ", and are therefore of less impor
tance from a practical, i.e. a moral, stand
point.1 Finally, a feeling may stimulate,
confuse, or paralyse the intellectual pro
cesses, as when rivalry gives a new viva
city to intellection, anger distorts the
judgment, or fear makes it impossible.
Conversely, as in Darwin's case, great
intellection tends to aridify the whole
emotional field.

" A complex a + a is reproduced by a

concept (presentation) furnished by a new

act of perception similar to a. Now

Desire. , c .'

when a, on account or its combi
nation with #, comes forward, it meets in
consciousness a concept (presentation) op
posed to it, /3. Then a will be, at the same
time, driven forward and held back. In
this situation, it is the source of an un
pleasant feeling which may give rise to
desire, viz. for the object represented by a,
provided the opposition offered by /3 is

1 It is noteworthy that the sexual emotion may exist in the
absence of all knowledge of its meaning.

HERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY 45

weaker than the force which a brings with
it." The sight of the lawn suggests the
delights of the putting-green, and forthwith
golf distracts the mind from its present oc
cupation, and may come above the thresh
old of consciousness with such force as to
overpower the focal presentations and pro
voke desire. This may lead to the abandon
ment of work and a visit to the golf course,
that is, to desiring has been added willing.
This addition does not always take place.
One may desire something that is hope
lessly beyond attainment, e.g. a golfer
might desire to be another Vardon, but in
most cases this is only a pleasant dream ;
if, in spite of unattainability, the desire
persists and grows stronger, there arises
what is called Obstructed Desire, a markedly
painful conscious state. Professor Ward
restricts the name " desire " to " Obstructed
Desire", but Herbart does not. "There
is a great difference between a strong will
and a strong desire. Napoleon willed when
emperor, and desired when at St. Helena.
The expression desire must not be so
limited as to exclude those wishes which
remain, though they may be vain or so-
called pious wishes, and which, for the
very reason that they do remain, constantly

46 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

incite men to new efforts, because through
them the thought of a possibility is ever
anew suggested, in spite of all reasons which
appear to prove the impossibility of attain
ment. It is very important to give to the
presentation of the unattainability of the
wished-for object strength enough so that
a peaceful renunciation may take the place
of the desire. A man dreams of a desir
able future for himself even when he knows
it will never come." There are, then, three
elements to be considered. Take the case
of the presentation of golf confronted with
the presentation of work : the three ele
ments are the idea, the active tension, and
the accompanying feeling; that is, as the
idea of golfing gains in strength, there is
a struggle to realize it in full actuality,
and, until this realization is in sight or
accomplished, there is pain, which ceases
and makes room for pleasure when the
idea of work is finally submerged. Now,
on Herbart's theory, the functioning of
the mind as intellect has other two aspects
— desire and feeling — which are not to be
thought of as separate independent faculties.
Among the conative elements are certain
primitive movements which Herbart classes
among the lower faculties of desire ; such

HERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY 47

are, for example, the restless activity of
children and young animals — a kitten is
said to be given to frantic rushes at no
thing and stopping before it gets there, the
reflex movement of blinking, when some
thing rapidly approaches the eyes, and the
action of swallowing, which may take place
during unconsciousness, or walking, which
may take place when one is asleep. Such
movements, which to some psychologists
are the foundation of will by supplying the
child with experiences, are not dictated
from without, and hence Herbart regards
them as results of the organism, and con
sequently physiological rather than psycho
logical. The relevant point is that they
are not due to a represented end or to
feeling ; like appetite, which is accompanied
by feeling, and unlike desire, they are
independent of presentations. Herbart
naturally lays stress on the inclinations.
"The inclinations, or those lasting mental
conditions which are favourable to the rise
of certain kinds of desires, show themselves
more than the so-called instincts to be
different in different people. They are for
the most part results of the habit which
appears to extend from the faculty of
representation into the faculty of desire.

48 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

For there are, first, the thoughts which
follow the accustomed direction, and which,
if no hindrance intervenes before there is
opportunity for perceptible feeling and
desire, pass directly into action ; but, if
something is placed in the way, then the
desire, accompanied by a feeling of effort
and fatiguing activity, increases." It is
manifest that to control the thoughts is to
control the desires and the will. If the
teacher can accumulate and strengthen the
right kind of presentations and withhold
or starve the wrong kind, the child's
thoughts will run in the proper direction,
and his desires will follow them. It will
be observed that Herbart speaks of habit^
meaning that habitual ideas will be followed
by habitual desires. This enters into his
whole doctrine of character formation and
of the teacher's suasory function. The
will is to be reached only through the
feelings and the intellect. The object held
up for pursuit must be realized as desirable,
and the hearer or reader must be convinced
that it is attainable. The desire for the
object depends on the strength of its pre
sentation, which belongs to intellection.
But, however strong the presentation may
be, it will not be effective unless there is

IIERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY 49

a memory of feeling ; we desire to renew
an experience that we remember as pleasur
able ; in the case of a new experience, we
have to be convinced that it will bring us
something that we remember as desirable.
"Will is a desire accompanied with the
presupposition of the attainment of that
which is desired. This presupposition
becomes united with the desire when,
in similar cases, the effort of action has
been followed by a result, i.e. by success ;
for then the presentation of a period of
time which contained the gratification of
the desire, suggested by association the
beginning of a new similar action. From
this arises a glance into the future, which
glance is continually extended in proportion
as a man learns to use more numerous
means to secure his ends." A spectator at
an exhibition of athletic feats might desire
to emulate some of them, but, if conscious
of his inability, would not will to do so.
On the other hand, one fairly expert at a
game, on seeing a master of it display a
new dexterity, might both desire and wih
to rival it. His own past experience leads
him to think himself capable of like skill,
and desiring the end he wills the means.
His glance into the future sees the possibility

(0359) 4

50 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERB ART

of such a combination of movements as
will bring about the desired result. When
he has attained the desired efficiency, as in
making a particular stroke at cricket, he is
unaware of either desire or effort ; in the
moment he realizes that a ball admits of
it, the stroke is made, the presentation and
the act are almost simultaneous. This is
the consequence of what is called Habit,
which, in Herbart's view, operates in moral
as well as in manual acquisitions ; by habit
the child does the right thing in conduct
as in drawing, and in both cases this follows
upon knowing; habitual knowing precedes
habitual doing.

How is the willing to be described ?
Kant conceived the will as possessing tran
scendental freedom, that is, a freedom
independent of experience. On this theory
" man has a two-fold character — an empiri
cal, determined by experience, intercourse,
temperament, &c., and an intelligible (ab
solute capacity), which exists as a thing in
itself transcendental, that is, outside ex
perience, time, and all chains of causation,
and thus is not determinable, but deter
mines only". Such a will can will what it
ought, " morality depends on a free resolu
tion without any external incentive ", and

IIERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY 51

hence Herbart renounced absolutely the
doctrine of transcendental freedom on the
ground that it negatives the whole idea of
education, since manifestly it is vain to
attempt to form character if man possesses
an inward absolute freedom, which ex hypo-
thesi is beyond the reach of external influ
ences. Herbart's own conception of the
act of willing is different. " When a
decision, the result of a completed act of
deliberation, is on the point of presenting
itself, it often happens that a desire arises
and opposes this decision. In that case a
man does not know what he wishes — he
regards himself as standing between two
forces which draw him towards opposite
sides. In this act of self-consideration he
places reason and desire opposite each other
as if they were foreign counsellors, and
regards himself as a third, who listens to
the two and then decides. He believes
himself to be free to decide as he will.
He finds himself sufficiently rational to
comprehend what reason may say to him,
and sufficiently susceptible to allow the
enticements of desire to influence him.
If this were ndt so, his freedom would
have no value ; he would only be able to
incline blindly in this or that direction,

52 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

but he would not choose. Now, however,
the reason to which he gives heed, and the
desire which excites and entices him, are
not really outside of him, but within him,
and he himself is not a third on a level
with those two, but his own mental life
lies in each and works in each. Hence,
when he finally chooses, this choice is
nothing but a co-operation of those two
factors, reason and desire, between which
he thought he stood free. When a man
finds that reason and desire in their co
operation have decided over him, he seems
to himself not to be free, but rather sub
jected to foreign arts and influences.
Manifestly, this is again an illusion, and
from exactly the same source as the first.
Just because reason and desire are nothing
outside of him, and he nothing outside of
them, the decision which arises from them
is not foreign, but, his own. He has
chosen only with self-activity, yet not with
a force different from his reason and from
his desire, and which could give a result
different from those two." In other words,
the self-activity that chooses is part of the
consciousness that includes presentations,
these and the self-activity forming a unity.
Willing involves (i) the presentation of

HERB ART'S PSYCHOLOGY 53

something desired, (2) a presupposition of
attainability, (3) activity, three different
aspects of soul activity. Willing, that is
to say, arises in and because of presenta
tions ; " will springs out of the circle of
thought ", the good will is born of the
good thought. While this is so far true,
and while it is also true that will cannot
be known in the abstract apart from the
presentation in which it reveals itself, there
are circumstances that qualify the Her-
bartian doctrine. As has been seen, there
are activities independent of experience, and
these supply experiences of pleasure and
pain that lead to repetition or discontinu
ance while the child's cognition is still
extremely feeble. "The process of acquire
ment may be described generally as follows :
At the outset, there happens a coincidence,
purely accidental, between a pleasure and a
movement (of Spontaneity) that maintains
and increases it; or between a pain and a
movement that alleviates or removes it ;
by the link of Self-conservation the move
ment bringing pleasure or removing pain
is sustained and augmented. Should this
happen repeatedly, an adhesive growth takes
place, through which the feeling can after
wards command the movement." Again,

54 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

the will exercises a powerful control — in-
hibitive or stimulating — over both feeling
and intellect ; it becomes strong enough to
crush down the most rebellious feelings
and to guide the current of the thoughts.
Further, the will can be trained "not in
directly, but directly, by its proper exercise
in sustained effort, resistance to temptation,
and so forth"; no doubt it has to be trained
on something, that is, as Dr. Stout puts it:
" Conative development is inseparably con
nected with cognitive development. . . .
Differentiation of conative consciousness is
differentiation of cognitive consciousness.
This does not imply that conation is sec
ondary to and dependent upon cognition.
What is meant is rather that conation and
cognition are different aspects of one and
the same process." The truth is that the
mental functions are so mutually involved
as to tempt psychologists to inquire which
is the most fundamental, and so one finds
it to be the intellectual function, another
the conative, and another the affective.
The practical teacher has to bear in mind
that the three functions are inextricably
interlaced, so that in affecting one he affects
all. Herbart's doctrine means that the
mind works as a whole > and that only be-

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 55

cause of this can the teacher secure that
goodwill which is the true end of educa
tion.

Such is an outline of Herbart's highly
ingenious psychological system, which is
condemned by Wundt and others because
it relies too much upon intellectualism,
and by Dewey and others because it is
" essentially a schoolmaster's psychology,
not the psychology of a child". "It is",
says Dewey, " the natural expression of a
nation laying great emphasis upon author
ity, and upon the formation of individual
character in distinct and recognized subordi
nation to the ethical demands made in war
and in civil administration by that authority.
It is not the psychology of a nation which
professes to believe that every individual
has within him the principle of authority,
and that order means co-ordination, not
subordination.1'

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY

Nevertheless this psychology has been
the source of a most stimulat- The Importance
ing pedagogy which is draw- of the
ing to itself an ever-growing Individual-
body of adherents and practitioners. Con-

56 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

trary to the common judgment, Herbart
neither desires that education should be
omnipotent, in the sense of compelling
each child into the same mould, nor main
tains that it can be. " The art of arousing
a child's mind from its repose — of securing
its trust and love in order to constrain and
excite it at pleasure, and to plunge it into
the whirl of later years before its time,
would be the most hateful of all bad arts
if it had not an aim to attain which can
justify such means even in the eyes of
those whose reproof is most to be feared.
'You will be thankful for it some day',
says the teacher to the weeping boy, and
truly it is only this hope that justifies the
tears wrung from him. Let him be care
ful that, in overweening confidence, he does
not too frequently have recourse to such
severe measures. Not all that is well
meant is thankfully received, and there is
a weak spot in the class of that teacher
who, with perverted zeal, considers that
as good which his pupils only experience
as evil. Hence the warning — do not
educate too much; refrain from all avoid
able application of that power by which
the teacher bends his pupils this way and
that, dominates their dispositions, and

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 57

destroys their cheerfulness. " This atti
tude led Herbart to object strongly to
Fichte's central idea with regard to the
purpose of education. The circumstances
of his time caused Fichte to advocate edu
cation under State control in order to
awake the civic and military spirit and the
duty of love to God, King, and Fatherland.
Herbart distrusted such opinions, because
they seemed to make too much of the
citizen and too little of the man, and also
because they seemed to threaten family
life, "the ground on which education
ought to grow". He saw in them the
seeds of an evil that since his time has
developed with threatening strength, the
tendency of parents to take no responsi
bility for a share in the education of their
children, but to leave the whole matter to
the State, and even to refrain from using
the means at their disposal to enlighten
the State as to their opinion of the educa
tional system pursued. He knew quite
well that the home is often a defective
place of education, but he looked forward
to a time and a means of making it a true
co-operator with the school, and he asked
that there should always be between the
two institutions a bond of interest and

58 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

sympathy in their common task of pro
moting the development of an individual
man. " Undiscerning parents may drill
their sons and daughters according to
their tastes — they may lay all kinds of
varnish on the unpolished wood, which
in years of independence will be roughly
rubbed off, but not without pain and in
jury. The true teacher, if he cannot pre
vent all this, will at least not participate
in it. ... He makes it a point of honour
that the clear impression of person, family,
birth, and nationality may be seen unde-
faced in the man submitted to his will/'
This self-restraint of the teacher is indeed
dictated by individuality, whereby " each
thing is differentiated from others of the
same species". This individuality "is
the mysterious root to which our psy
chological conjecture refers everything
which, according to circumstances, comes
out ever differently in human beings".
In like manner, although Locke says,
" 'Tis that [Education] which makes the
great difference in mankind", and again,
" I imagine the minds of children as easily
turned this way or that way as water
itself", he also says: "God has stamped
certain characters upon men's minds which,

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 59

like their shapes, may perhaps be a little
mended, but can hardly be totally altered
and transformed into the contrar^*-^"

By his emphasis on individuality and
the need of developing the individual
man. Herbart led the way to-

, i .t , j i_- i_ Child Study.

wards that child study which
promises to make teaching a more in
teresting and attractive field and a more
fruitful enterprise. He says, it is true,
" that the teacher must represent the
future man in the boy, consequently the
aims which the pupil will as an adult place
before himself in the future must be the
present care of the teacher; he must pre
pare beforehand an inward facility for
attaining them"; and thus seems to counte
nance the idea now generally rejected that
children are to be treated as undeveloped
adults; and, as has been seen, his psy
chology is charged with being " not the
psychology of a child". Whatever truth
may lie in these criticisms, and it would
not be difficult to show that they are in
consistent with a true comprehension of
Herbart's theory of interest, it is the fact
that, in Herbart's view, we cannot teach
unless we know the child as he is now\ and
it is the purpose of child study to get hold

60 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

of this knowledge. The subject cannot
be fully treated here, but one or two
illustrations may be given of what is to
be gained from observation of the individ
ual. "It may be assumed", says Bain,
" that in the early part of the day the total
energy of the system is at its height, and
that towards evening it flags; hence mor
ning is the season of improvement. " On
the other hand, Munsterberg points out,
"Experiments demonstrate various rhythms
and curves of fatigue for the whole day's
work. There are some who are freshest
in the morning, others who are freshest in
the afternoon. And while examinations
of whole classes hide these individual
differences, a careful study shows that
almost every individual has his own dis
tribution of greatest efficiency and easiest
fatigue. Some are at their best after a
night's sleep and become tired during
the day; others are in a still half-asleep
state and through the small stimulations
of the day they awake more and more,
until late in the day they are at their
highest power. The individual differences
of fatigue demand very different distribu
tions of effort in order to secure the fullest
efficiency. In the best case all general

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 6l

rules only compromise between the needs
of the different individuals, and these
compromises can do little toward levelling
the variations, as such fundamental types
of fatigue tendencies seem to remain char
acteristic for individual nervous systems."1
Success in teaching depends on the dis-,
covery of such individual variations and
the accommodation of the conditions to
them, but clearly this implies much smaller
classes than are found at present in primary
schools. Take another illustration, this
time of the way in which a general mental
law may have to be interpreted by actual
experience. "Every seed", says Herbart,
"recalls the plant from which it started,
and points forward to that which may
arise from it, while at the same time it
suggests the use which may perhaps be
made of it without planting it." Are all
these things suggested to the same indi
vidual? If not, what determines the sug
gestion of any particular one? The answer
is found in Dr. H. J. Watt's experiments
on the influence of purpose in the control
of associations. "He asked men to give

Some striking examples of how the results of mere introspec
tion are checked by exact experiment will be found in Brown's
Mental Measurement.

62 JOIIANN FRIEDRICII JIERRART

the first word that came into mind after
a printed word was shown when first one,
then another task had been set. It was
found that the word suggested always, and
automatically, corresponded to the purpose
dominant through the task that had been
set. Not only the course of the association,
but the average time required to make
response, and the character of the sensory
image, varied with each purpose. These
facts are convincing proof that the purpose
is fully as important as the direct connection
in determining the course of ideas." Thus,
to take Herbart's case, to the botanist peas
would suggest the plants that bore them,
to the amateur gardener the plants that
would spring from them, to the housewife
Scotch broth or some other dish to which
they would contribute; all of which illus
trates Herbart's teaching about the rela
tion between interests and presentations.
Teachers that have caught the spirit of
Herbart will be eager to ascertain the in
dividuality of the children to be taught
and to modify their teaching accordingly.
It may be added that child study is still
at a stage where much fresh material is
required, and that this can be supplied by
teachers with a competent knowledge of

IIERBART'S PEDAGOGY 63

psychology and the love and sympathy
needed for the interpretation of the child
mind.

"The art of Education", says Bain,
" assumes a certain average physical health,
and does not enquire into the physical
means of keeping up or increas- Education.
ing that average." This limitation of the
art is not admitted in the theory or the
practice of to-day, which take as their
guide the dictum, "The first requisite to
success in life is to be a good animal ". The
revelations of recruiting officers during the
last South African war led to a demand
for the medical inspection (which has, as
its corollary, the medical treatment) of
school children, and the provision of suit
able physical instruction and recreation
grounds. Herbart found the basis of all
disposition in physical health. " Sickly
natures feel themselves dependent, robust
ones dare to T(W//. Therefore the care of
health is essentially a part of the forma
tion of character, though without belonging
to the science of education, where even the
first principles for that care are wanting.''
True to his conception of the unity of
human nature, Herbart cannot omit the
physical factor in education; the connec-

64 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

tion of soul and body and their co-opera
tion make it impossible to ignore physical
education, but, like many other educa
tionists, he would " feel compelled to give
a warning note against making physical
health and strength the principal aim of
our national wellbeing. Far more im
portant really is our intellectual supremacy,
and immeasurably more important is our
moral and spiritual prowess." With this
utterance Herbart would have agreed.

For him the aim of education is summed
up in one word — ^lorality. "We might
The Aim of assume as many problems for
Education. education as there are permis
sible aims for men. But then, this would
involve as many educational inquiries as
problems, which would have to be carried
on irrespective of their mutual relation
ships, and it could not be seen how the
teacher's separate measures are to be limited,
or in what way they might be carried out.
We should find ourselves much too poor
in means, if we tried to attain every in
dividual aim directly, and that which we
intended only to effect singly, might have
tenfold results from secondary and acci
dental causes, so that all parts of the work
would be thrown out of their right propor-

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 65

tions. This point of view is thus unsuit
able for approaching the consideration of
educational questions as a connected whole.
If it is to be possible to think out thor
oughly and accurately, and to carry out
systematically, the business of education as
a single whole, it must be previously pos
sible to comprehend the work of educa
tion also as but one. Morality is univer
sally acknowledged as the highest aim of
humanity, and consequently of education."
This is the all-embracing aim; "education
does not work for the vocation in life ".
This is a necessity of the case. " How can
the teacher assume for himself beforehand
the merely possible future aims of the pupil?
The objective of these aims as matter of
mere choice has absolutely no interest for
the teacher. Only the Will of the future
man himself, and consequently the sum of
the claims which he, in and with this Will,
will make on himself, is the object of the
teacher's goodwill ; while the power, the
initiative inclination, the activity which the
future man will have wherewith to meet
these claims on himself, form for the
teacher matter of consideration and judg
ment in accordance with the idea of per
fection. Thus it is not a certain number

(0359) 5

66 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

of separate aims that hover before us now
(for these we could not beforehand thor
oughly know), but chiefly the activity of the
growing man — the totality of his inward
unconditioned vitality and susceptibility.
The greater this totality — the fuller f, more
expanded^ and harmonious — the greater is the
perfection, and the greater the promise of
the realization of our goodwill." Herbart
is pleading here for that many-sided interest
in which morality is rooted, since moral
culture is so related to the other parts of
culture that it presupposes them as condi
tions from which alone it can with certainty
be developed ; " that the ideas of the right
and good in all their clearness and purity
may become the essential objects of the
will, that the innermost intrinsic contents
of the character — the very heart of the per
sonality — shall determine itself according
to these ideas, putting back all arbitrary
impulses — this and nothing else is the
aim of moral culture.1 '

It will be seen that in Herbart's eyes
there can be no education without instruc-

Education tion- " J . have . no conception
through of education without instruc-
Instruction. tjon^ just ^s conversely I do not

acknowledge any instruction that does not

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 6?

educate. Whatever arts and acquirements
a young man may learn from a teacher for
the mere sake of profit, are as indifferent
to the educator as the colour he chooses
for his coat. But how his circle of
thought is being formed is everything to
the teacher, for out of thoughts come feel
ings, and from them principles and modes
of action." This is the corollary of his
psychology, and has been criticized by
critics of the psychology as well as by
others that regard it as a variation of the
teaching of Helvetius, and as leading to
an exaggerated view of the importance of
the schoolmaster. The fear is expressed
that Herbartianism must produce an excess
of mere instruction and a restriction of the
pupil's initiative. Herbart, however, ex
pressly warns his readers against allowing
either of these things to be a consequence
of his teaching. Many-sidedn ess of interest
must be distinguished from its exaggera
tion — dabbling in many things, but it must
exist in the Herbartian sense. "The interest
which a human being feels directly is the
source of his life. To open many such
sources, and to cause them to flow forth
plenteously and unchecked, is the art of
strengthening human life, and at the same

68 JOHANN FRIEDKICH HERBART

time of fostering love of one's kind. If
each of these interests is as varied as the
achievements of many individuals taken
together, then the latter are united in one
bond by a happy necessity. On the con
trary, when each individual cares only for
his own business or avocation, and all be
sides is but means to this end, society is
a machine, and each member of it keeps
his life warm at a single spark, which may
be extinguished, and then nothing remains
but dismal coldness, satiety, and disgust."
Herbart, in fact, asks in familiar phrase
for " the harmonious cultivation of all the
powers"; and, as what he asks shall be
known is to be held not in isolation —
"whatever is isolated is valueless " —but
as part of an apperceptive mass of ideas,
and is to become this by concentration and
reflection, it is clear that Herbart gives no
sanction to the diffusion of mental energy
or the accumulation of unrelated facts.
" Synthetic instruction, which builds with
its own stones, is alone capable of erect
ing the entire structure of thought which
education requires," and as such it has
nothing in common with what is stigmatized
as " the giving of information ". Again,
throughout the whole process of building

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 69

up apperception masses, the pupil's own
individuality and activity count for most.
"The individual grasps rightly what is
natural to him," and his individuality re
acting on his opportunities determines
"the starting-point of advancing culture."
Not less important is the pupil's self-
activity in the sphere of moral culture.
" c A making ' which the pupil himself dis
covers when choosing the good and rejecting the
bad — this or nothing is formation of char
acter! This rise to self-conscious per
sonality ought without doubt to take place
in the mind of the pupil himself, and be
completed through his own activity ; it
would be nonsense if the teacher desired
to create the real essence of the power to
do it, and to pour it into the soul of the
pupil. But to place the power already
existent and in its nature trustworthy under
such conditions that it must infallibly and
surely accomplish this rise — this it is which
the teacher must look upon as possible,
which to attain, to affect, to investigate,
to forward, and to guide, he must re
gard as the great object of all his efforts.
. . . The formation of character attains
certainty of result just in proportion as it
is quickened and trained in the period of

70 JOHANN FRIEDRICH IIERBART

education. And this is possible only by
making youths, even boys, active agents
early. Those who grow up merely passive,
as obedient children, have no character
when they are released from supervision.
They give themselves up to their hidden
longings and to circumstances, now when
no one has any longer power over them,
or when any power that can still perhaps
be exercised, affects them in but a crooked
manner, and must either drive them off at
a tangent or crush them altogether." Let
it be noted that the teacher who accepts
the Herbartian doctrine of the power of
ideas to evolve all mental states and to
form character, necessarily carries into his
work a deep and solemn sense of responsi
bility.

Herbart's concept of interest plays a
leading part in his pedagogy. It is neces
sary, in the first place, to realize

Interest. , J ' , u L • A

what he means by knowing. A
good deal of criticism has been directed
against his proposition that right willing de
pends on right thinking. " Instruction will
form the circle of thought, and education
the character. The last is nothing without
the first ; herein is contained the whole sum of
my pedagogy" " Ignoti nulla cupido! The

HERB ART'S PEDAGOGY 71

circle of thought contains the store of that
which by degrees can mount by the steps
of interest to desire, and then by means
of action to volition. Further, it contains
the store upon which all the workings of
prudence are founded — in it are the know
ledge and care without which man cannot
pursue his aims through means. The
whole inner activity, indeed, has its abode
in the circle of thought. Here is found
the initiative life, the primal energy; here
all must circulate easily and freely, every
thing must be in its place ready to be found
and used at any moment; nothing must lie
in the way, and nothing like a heavy load
impede useful activity. Clearness, associa
tion, system and method must rule here.
Courage will then be sustained by the
certainty of the inner performance, and
rightly so, for the external impediments
which unexpectedly appear to the foresight
of a careful intelligence, can terrify him but
little, who knows that, with altered circum
stances, he can at once evolve new plans."
What is asked for in this second passage
is " perfect cognition, that is, a cognition
fulfilling three conditions: first, that it
holds for true a proposition that really is
true ; second, that it is perfectly self-

72 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

satisfied and free from the uneasiness of
doubt ; third, that some character of this
satisfaction is such that it would be logically
impossible that this character should ever
belong to satisfaction in a proposition not
true " (C. S. Peirce). On this knowledge
the subject acts. The confidence with which
an expert acts is due to the perfection of
his knowledge and the number of times he
has applied it with success. The habit of
knowing has generated the habit of doing;
the ideas are so vivid and dominant that
they easily pass into action.

The question then arises. How do ideas
become so vivid and dominant ? In School
boys and School Work^ Mr. Lyttleton says:
" A young man may be ignorant of very
many truths without being a discredit to
his school, but he becomes a discredit as
soon as ever he shows a reluctance to go
on learning"; and there is the undoubted
fact that a considerable number of scholars
pass out from schools of all kinds without
desire to pursue studies of any kind; yet
they all have interests. What is interest ?
" Interest arises from interesting objects
and occupations. Many-sided interest
originates in the wealth of these. To
create and develop this interest is the task

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 73

of instruction, which carries on and com
pletes the preparation begun by intercourse
and experience.'' That is to say, what is
interesting depends on what has been
apperceived. "What is interesting", says
Pillsbury, "is identical with the things
which, as we have seen above, must be
attended to from subjective reasons. They
are the things that demand attention, be
cause they . are related to our previous
experience, because our social environment
compels it, or because of hereditary influ
ences. Interest, then, is not dependent
upon the object, but upon the nature of
the man to whom the object is presented.
As we develop, many things become inter
esting that previously were uninteresting.
Interests grow with knowledge, and, in
fact, are made by knowledge ; they are not
fixed once and for all, even in the same
individual." Interest, then, is a mental
process begun by a presentation related to
the presentations already apperceived, and
ending in the apperception of the new
presentation. The completeness of the
apperception depends on the force of the
interest, and this on habit. A golfer seeing
a new club takes it into his hand, and
presently a whole series of movements

74 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

follows automatically ; he takes his stance,
swings the club, and hits at some object ;
a moral character confronted with a crisis,
selects the right course and follows it
automatically: in both cases the ideas flow
in familiar channels. There is a mental
alertness in certain habitual spheres; when
Lord Goschen asked for "intellectual in
terest " on the part of workers, he sug
gested that this is too often absent because
their work is a habitual doing without a
habitual thinking.

The interest that Herbart wishes to
develop is beyond that springing from the
Many-sided Dent of the child. " The indi-
Interest. vidual grasps rightly what is
natural to him, but the more he exclusively
cultivates himself in this direction the more
certainly does he falsify through his habitual
frame of mind every other impression.
This the many-sided man should not do.
From him many acts of concentration are
expected. He must grasp everything with
clean hands ; he must give himself wholly
up to each one." Natural bent in its
strongest form is genius. " The difference
in the dispositions which determines what
the individual compasses with greater or
less facility, must certainly be taken into

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 75

consideration. For what is successful will
be willingly undertaken and often repeated;
and, if it cannot become an aim, it can at
least serve as a means. It works conse
quently as a force to forward other aims,
and to strengthen the bent of the mind in
that direction. Nevertheless that high
degree of success of individual activities
which characterizes a special genius, is in
no way favourable to the formation of
character. For genius depends too much
on varying moods to permit of memory of
the will ; it is not at its own command."
Thus the educator must correct the tend
ency to one-sidedness by cultivating many-
sidedness ; yet individuality is not to be
destroyed ; it is to be blended with the
character and preserved in it. " We con
cede, then, that individuality may come
into collision with many-sidedness; we do
not forget that we declared war against it
in the name of the latter, if it would not
allow of proportioned many-sided interest.
While we, however, at once rejected dab
bling in many things, a large sphere yet
remains for individuality in which to exer
cise its activity — to make choice of its
vocation, and to acquire the thousand little
habits and comforts which so long as no

76 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

more value is attached to them than they
are worth, will do but little harm to the
receptivity and mobility of the mind. The
principle has been previously laid down,
that the teacher should not make attempts
which are beside the aim of education.
There are many individualities ; the idea
of many-sidedness is but one. The former
is contained in the latter collectively as
the part in the whole. And the part can
be measured by the whole ; it can also be
enlarged to the whole. This has now to
be accomplished by education. But we
must not picture this enlargement, as if to
the already existent part other parts were
to be gradually added. Many-sidedness
in its entirety floats constantly before the
teacher, but diminished and enlarged. His
task is to increase the quantity^ without
changing the outlines^ the proportion, the
form. Only this work undertaken with the
individual does always change his outline,
as if from a certain centre point on an
irregular angular body a sphere gradually
grew, which was nevertheless incapable of
ever covering over the extreme projections.
The projections — the strength of individ
uality — may remain, so far as they do
not spoil the character ; through them the

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY ?/

entire outline may take this or that form.
It will not be difficult, after the taste is
formed, to unite with each of these a
certain peculiar fitness. But the solid con
tent of an interest equably enlarged on all
sides, determines the store of the immediate
intellectual life, which, since it does not
hang on one thread, cannot be destroyed
by one stroke of fate, but can merely be
diverted by circumstances. And since the
moral order of life takes its direction from
circumstances, a many-sided culture gives
a priceless facility and pleasure in pass
ing on to every new kind of activity and
mode of life that may at any time be the
best. The more individuality is blended
with many-sidedness, the more easily will
the character assert its sway over the
individual."

There are, therefore, two factors to be
considered. On the one hand, education
strives to produce many-sided- Two factorg
ness by the cultivation of varied to be
interest. On the other hand, con»idered-
individuality has to be allowed for, and
this is described by Herbart in terms that
imply a heredity with which the teacher
has to reckon. " Character, then, almost
inevitably expresses itself in opposition to

78 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

individuality by conflict. For it is simple
and steadfast ; individuality, on the con
trary, continually sends forth from its
depths other and new thoughts and de
sires. Even if its activity be conquered,
it still enfeebles the execution of resolves
through its manifold passivity and sus
ceptibility. This struggle is not confined
to moral characters; every character knows
it. For each individual in his own way
seeks consistency. The ambitious man
and the egoist complete themselves in
victory over the better traits of individu
ality. The hero of vice and the hero of
virtue, alike complete themselves in vic
tory over self. In ridiculous contrast, weak
individuals also exist, who, in order also to
have a theory and a consistency, base their
theory on the principle of not fighting but
letting themselves slide. Truly a weari
some and a wonderful struggle out of light
into darkness, out of consciousness into
the unconscious. It is at least better to
wage it sensibly than in a spirit of blind
obstinacy."

The cultivation of many-sidedness in-
The Concept volves the control of the soul
of Interest. activity, which must not be
permitted to travel too far in any par-

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 79

ticular direction. " The concept of interest,
then, took its origin for us in that we
broke off, as it were, something from the
growths of human activity, in that we in
no wise denied to inner vitality its mani
fold developments, but certainly denied
their extreme expression. What is it that
is broken off, or that is denied ? It is
action, and that which immediately impels
thereto, desire. Desire, therefore, taken
together with interest, must represent the
whole of an upspringing human impulse.
Further, there could be no intention of
closing to all impulses an outlet in ex
ternal activity; on the contrary, after we
have first distinguished the various im
pulses by their objects, it will become clear
which kind is worthy of a certain develop
ment even to its fullest expression." Only
in this way can the harmonious develop
ment of the individual be secured, namely,
through controlling one set of presentations
by other setSj^^

Herbart's distinction between interest
and desire is important because on it
depends the soundness of his interest and
claim that the educator's busi- Desire.
ness is to create interest. " Interest, whicn
in common with desire, will, and the aesthetic

80 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

judgment, stands opposed to indifference,
is distinguished from those three in that it
neither controls nor disposes of its object,
but depends upon it. It is true that we
are inwardly active because we are inter
ested, but externally we are passive till
interest passes into desire or volition. It
occupies the mean between mere observa
tion and attainment. This remark helps
to make clear a distinction that must not
be overlooked, namely, that the object of
interest can never be identical with that
which is in reality desired. For the desires,
while they would fain grasp, strive toward
some future object which they do not
already possess ; interest, on the other
hand, unfolds itself in observation, and
clings to the contemplated present. Interest
rises above mere perception only in that
what it perceives possesses the mind by
preference, and makes itself felt among the
remaining perceptions by virtue of a cer
tain causality. The first causality which a
presentation more prominent than others
exercises over the rest is that it involun
tarily represses and obscures them. As it
then exercises its power to bring about
what we have above termed concentration,
we can designate the condition of the mind

HERBARTS PEDAGOGY 8 1

so occupied by the word Observation.
The easiest and commonest course of this
causality, which seldom permits the attain
ment of a quiescent concentration, consists
in the arousing of an analogous presenta
tion by the object observed. If the mind
be merely inwardly active, and permits this
movement to complete itself, then at most
a new act of attention follows. But often
the newly aroused presentation cannot im
mediately come forth; and this is always
the case when interest started from the
observation of an external reality, and when
to this a fresh presentation attaches itself
as if the reality moved or changed in a
certain manner. So long as the reality
delays presenting this progress to the
senses, interest hovers in Expectation. The
expected is naturally not identical with that
which aroused the expectation. The former,
which perhaps can now for the first time
put in an appearance, is in the future; the
latter, on or from which the new can arise
or date itself, is the present, on which,
in the case of interest, attention, properly
speaking, fastens. If the condition of mind
changes to such an extent that the mind
loses itself more in the future than in the
present, and the patience which lies in ex-

(0369) 6

82 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERB ART

pectation is exhausted, then out of interest
grows desire, and this makes itself known
through the Demand of its object."

An example will make this clearer. There
lies before an author a piece of work partly
completed, and it calls forward certain pre
sentations which repress and obscure the
others. If his interest in the work is
powerful — and this will depend on habit
ual functioning in this particular direc
tion — he proceeds forthwith to carry it a
stage further. The state of consciousness
between perceiving the work and absorp
tion in continuing it is what Herbart calls
Expectation. Meantime, however, another
presentation may have come into the field
of consciousness, the idea of the reward the
work will bring ; and desire to have done
with the intervening labour predominates
over present functioning. But "it is in
glorious to be absorbed by desires ", whereas
" patient interest can never be too rich ",
and hence the aim of education is to pro
mote interest in the right things. In
interest "the character possesses a facility
in accomplishing its resolves " ; that is, it
functions with facility in habitual directions
that lead to approved ends. A burglar
functions in his operations with facility and

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 83

certainty, not troubling about the outcome
of his actions, since they are bound to pro
duce their accustomed result ; a philan
thropist is equally " interested " in dealing
with a case of distress. Hence, as Pro
fessor de Garmo puts it : " When there is
interest in the end to be attained by
activity, and also in the means for reach
ing the end, we have the type of work
desirable in education. A. direct interest,
therefore, should be aroused in the studies
as the means of reaching the ends of
education ; this interest when thoroughly
aroused has a reflex influence in develop
ing true ideals of life and conduct. The
mental attitude of the sculptor is the ideal
one for the pupil, since the interest he feels
in the statue as an end attaches to every
stage of its creation. When this direct
interest is moral, as well as intellectual and
aesthetic, then instruction becomes truly
educative." Education has to make sure
that the right presentations evoke the
psychological activity that we call interest,
and do so with such habitual force that the
others are repressed and obscured.

The creation of many-sidedness involves
a succession of concentrations and reflec
tions. Interest means complete absorption

84 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

for the time being in what has excited it.
" He who has at any time given himself

Concentration Up COH amOTS tO any object of

and Reflection, human activity understands
what concentration means. For what occu
pation or what kind of knowledge is so
mean, what gain on the road of culture
allows itself to be so quickly won, that there
is no need to bury ourselves therein, and
withdraw awhile from all other thoughts ?
As a suitable light is necessary to every
picture, as judges of art require a fitting
frame of mind in the observer of every
work of art — in like manner a suitable
attention is due to everything worthy of
being observed, thought, or felt, in order
to understand it wholly and correctly, and
to transport oneself into it." It is clear,
however, that such absorption, however
necessary for the development of one
interest, is incompatible with the develop
ment of many interests, and therefore the
activity must be cut off in order that con
centration may take place in other direc
tions. But these various concentrations
are useless unless unified, and this is the
work of Reflection, whereby the contents
of consciousness are recollected and co
ordinated, so that apperception masses are

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 85

built up. " The acts of concentration ex
clude each other, and thus even exclude
the Reflection in which they must be
united. These processes cannot be con
temporaneous; they must therefore follow
one upon the other; we get first one act
of concentration, then another, then their
meeting in reflection. How many number
less transitions of this kind must the mind
make before a person, in the possession of
a rich reflection and the completest power
of reverting at will into every concentration,
can call himself many-sided." The value of
the apperception mass is, however, affected
by the nature of the elements that have
been welded together. "By no means
pure reflection, and consequently no true
many-sidedness, in so far as they bring
together contradictories. They then either
do not combine, but remain lying near each
other, in which case the man is scatter
brained, or they grind each other down,
and torment the mind by doubts and
impossible wishes." This happens when
links of connection are lacking, and hence
the necessity of knowing the contents of
a child's mind — the data supplied by ex
perience and intercourse. cc The gaps left
by intercourse in the little sphere of feel-

86 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

ing, and those left by experience in the
larger circle of knowledge, are for us almost
equally great, and in the former as in the
latter, completion by instruction must be
equally welcome." Only the ideas already
apperceived can apperceive and interpret
the new presentation, and the success of
the apperception and interpretation will
depend on the links between the new and
the old. " After a considerable number of
presentations in all kinds of combinations
is present, every new act of perception
must work as an excitant by which some
will be arrested, others called forward and
strengthened, progressing series interrupted
or set again in motion, and this or that
mental state occasioned. These manifesta
tions must become more complex if, as is
usual, the presentation received by the new
act of perception contains in itself a multi
plicity or variety, that at the same time
enables it to hold its place in several com
binations and series, and gives them a
fresh impulse which brings them into new
relations of opposition or blending with
one another." The teacher must therefore
know whether there are in the child's
mind such presentations as will respond to
the new presentation.

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 87

Interest works in six different The Fields

Spheres: of Interest.

{a. Empirical.
b. Speculative.
c. ./Esthetic.
{a. Sympathetic.
b. Social.
c. Religious.

The subjects drawn from these six spheres
are those in connection with which the
teacher must excite interest ; and, it will
be observed, they correspond to a growth
of the child mind. A beginning is made
with the concrete, what appeals to the
senses, what is learned by experience of
things ; a further step is taken when the
child asks, Why? and seeks for an answer;
a still further step when the child appre
ciates the beautiful in nature and art, action
and character. A child may be interested
in a rainbow as an experience in form and
colour, or as a phenomenon that demands
explanation, or as a thing of beauty. " If
sympathy simply accepts the affections it
finds in human minds, follows their course,
enters into their varieties, collisions, and
contradictions, it is merely a fellow-feeling.
But it can also abstract the varied affections

88 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

of many men from the individuals, it can
seek to reconcile their contradictions, it
can interest itself in the welfare of the
whole, and then again distribute this
interest in thought amongst the individ
uals. This is social sympathy. Finally,
it can pass over from mere sympathy
into fear and hope by contemplating the
state of men in relation to their environ
ment. This solicitude leads to a religious
need." Herbart does not rest his morality
upon religion, but he has much to say on
religion, the universal natural principle of
which is " sympathy with the universal
dependence of men ". It should receive
early attention from parents and teachers.
" The foundations of religious interest
must be laid deep and in early life, so
deep that in later years the mind rests
untroubled in its religion, while speculation
follows its own course. . . . Religion be
friends and protects, but nevertheless it
must not be given to the child too cir
cumstantially. Its work must be directing
rather than teaching. It must not be given
dogmatically to arouse doubt, but in union
with knowledge of nature and the repres
sion of egotism. It must ever point be
yond, but never instruct beyond the bounds

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 89

of knowledge. . . . God is the true centre
of all moral ideas and of their illimitable
workings, the Father of men and Lord of
the world. . . . The Church may maintain
relations with the School, but must not
dominate it."

It will have been seen that Herbart's
interest is not the same as what is inter
esting, that his pedagogy does interest
not countenance teaching chil- and Effort.
dren only what is agreeable to them, and
that only by agreeable methods. Accord
ing to this view, interest is used to promote
the acquisition of knowledge; but accord
ing to Herbart knowledge is the source of
interest, and interest involves effort, which
is strenuously put forth despite all obstacles
and pain in order to achieve the purpose that
stimulates the soul. Basedow claimed that
the methods of the Philanthropists made
studies thrice as agreeable, but Herbart
does not hesitate to describe the formation
of character by instruction as a conflict, and
to speak of the hardening of the will. This
hardening will not be possible "until we
learn how to arrange a mode of life for the
young whereby they can pursue, according
to their own and, indeed, their right mind,
what in their own eyes is a serious activity".

90 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

That is to say, let a purpose interest, and
all the means, painful or pleasant, will be
faced. If the boy has set his heart on
learning to ride the bicycle, he will bear
ridicule and the pain of many falls in order
to achieve his purpose. The purpose in
terests because its presentation brings for
ward many supporting presentations in the
mind ; it is the teacher's function to in
crease the number of strong purposes, of
presentations that excite the mind to func
tion as interest. In this way the will can
be trained by effort to effort ; only the
effort is a serious activity, not a moral
treadmill.

It is usual to speak of direct interest,
due to the subject itself, and indirect in-
Mediate terest, due to some extraneous
interest motive. Thus one may study
mathematics because one is interested
in that science, or in order to pass some
examination although one may be in
different to the subject or even dislike it.
It is a common school practice to urge a
child to its task by praise or blame, the
hope of reward or the fear of punishment,
but this cannot make the task interesting,
that is, the subject-matter will not there
by excite the apperceived presentations to

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 91

take up the new ideas; and if not, what
has been gained ? The usual contention is
that the child learns something that will
be assimilated later on, but it may be
questioned whether the admitted failure of
the school to waken a universal real interest
in school work, with the result that many
leave it practically uneducated, is not due
to excessive reliance on what is called
mediate or indirect interest. Herbart gives
a place to it. " Education constrains,
though less abruptly, yet to just the same
extent as government, by persistently insist
ing on that which is unwillingly done, and
by persistently leaving out of account the
wishes of the pupil. ... A somewhat
closer consideration of the aim of education
reveals the fact that the motive of our
whole attitude towards children is not en
tirely consideration for them only — -for the
improvement of their mental condition. We
restrain them that, they may not be trouble
some ; we protect them because we love
them, and this love is meant primarily for
the living being in whom the parents
find their joy; and then after all this -comes
a voluntary solicitude for the right de
velopment of a future reasonable being."
Accordingly Herbart discusses the usual

92 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

punishments and rewards. On these one
passage may be quoted. " Let the teacher
attempt nothing by reward and punish
ment which will not raise and enhance his
personal worth in the eyes of the pupil.
If he does not possess this personal affec
tion and esteem, his means will be of little
use, he will effect nothing. All single acts
of discipline depend on the relation of the
whole of education which the teacher has
already given the pupil, for all admonitions
and warnings call to memory only what is
already known. Single disciplinary acts
as single are worthless, and determine
nothing." It has to be admitted that the
subject to which we are kept by indirect
interest — an obvious misnomer, since the
future reward or punishment is a direct
interest — often does afterwards enter in a
real way into our mental life, but this must
be because there is some point of contact
between it and the ideas already apper-
ceived, and the question is, whether in
many cases it would not be possible by
searching to find out this point of contact
and to substitute direct for indirect in
terest.

Attention is a condition of interest.
"Attention depends on the relative power

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 93

of a presentation to that of others which
must yield to it — depends therefore partly
on the intrinsic strength of the

, . . , Attention.

one, partly on the ease with
which the remainder yield. The strength
of a presentation can be attained partly
through the power of the sensuous impres
sion (as, for example, through the simul
taneous speaking of several children, also by
the display of the same object in different
ways with drawings, instruments, models,
&c.), partly through the vividness of de
scriptions, especially if already connected
presentations rest in the depths of the mind,
which will unite with the one to be given."
The attention that depends on the strength
of the sensational appeal is called primi
tive ; that which depends on previously
acquired presentations is called appercep-
tive, and has been well described by Pro
fessor Pillsbury: "A new idea, to receive
recognition, must be in harmony with the
ideas already present, must be in some
way connected with the earlier experiences
of the individual. In Herbart's often-
quoted instance, schoolboys who are list
less and inattentive during the routine of
class instruction become at once interested
as the master begins to tell a story. The

94 JOIIANN FRIEDRICH IIERBART

ideas already in mind hold no relation to
the matter of the lesson, and so are hostile
to it; but as soon as the story begins ideas
are offered which stand in close relation to
the daily life of the hearers — there are
other ideas in mind ready to receive and
facilitate the entrance of the new. As
a consequence attention is awakened, the
boys are alert, and the entire room still,
except for the words of the tale. So in
general what shall be perceived, what shall
enter mind at any time, depends almost
entirely upon the ideas which are already
present. Of course, what are the apper-
ceived ideas at one moment may become
the apperceiving ideas at the next. The
apperceived impression, therefore, is said
to react upon the apperceiving mass in
much the same way that the apperceiving
reacts upon the apperceived. This aspect
of the process is, however, subordinated to
the other. The important point is that the
course of the mental states at any moment
is largely determined by the perceptions of
the periods that had preceded it," Both
of these kinds Herbart calls involuntary:
voluntary attention implies a strong effort
to attend ; " it is chiefly necessary when
uninteresting matter is to be committed to

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 95

memory", and is the attention roused by
indirect interest.1

From his psychology Herbart evolved
certain conditions of apperception; and as
the aim of every school lesson is .

i * /*i i «i j> The Steps.

to increase the store or the child s
ideas (^filling the mind — this it is, which
before all other more detailed purposes
ought to be the general result of instruc
tion") and the facility with which they
apperceive, these conditions became " for
mal steps " of instruction. On these Dr.
Colgrove, in The Teacher and the School, has
some useful observations. "These steps
have been given various names by different
writers, though the terms used by Her
bart are — (i) Clearness ; (2) Association ;
(3) System; (4) Method. Among Ameri
can writers the steps are quite generally
known as (i) Preparation; (2) Presenta
tion; (3) Comparison; (4) Generalization;
(5) Application. Some writers include the
last three steps under the general head
of elaboration. The first four steps are
mainly inductive. These so-called 'formal

1 Attention is usually classified as reflex (Herbart's "primi
tive"), as when music calls our thoughts away from a task; and
voluntary, as when there is a purpose to attend (Herbart's
"voluntary"), or when this object is interesting (Herbart'«
" apperceptive ").

96 JOIIANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

steps ' do not form a strait-jacket to fetter
the individuality of the teacher, as some
critics seem to think ; nor, on the other
hand, are they a procrustean bed on which
every recitation1 is to be stretched, for
lessons consisting of arbitrary facts or un
related ideas cannot be taught in this way.
Like all general principles, they admit of
great variety in their application to details.
They do not solve all the problems of
method, but they do serve as a standard
by which the teacher can measure the
correctness of his daily practice, and, once
mastered, they contribute very much to
the teacher's skill, power, and success in
instruction. It is a misnomer to speak of
the c five steps in the recitation ', for very
often the whole recitation must consist of
one or two steps only. Many consecutive
lessons may consist of the fifth step alone."
He further points out that the pupil, as
well as the teacher, has to use the steps.
"The formal steps apply primarily to the
pupil's mental processes in the act of acquir
ing knowledge, and therefore apply with
special emphasis to the pupil's study of the
textbook after the lesson has been assigned.
To understand his lesson as he studies it,

1 A class meeting for an oral lesson.

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 97

the pupil must grasp the new ideas by
means of his old related ones, compare
them, abstract the essential qualities, and
form generalizations. In fact, this is the
only way that he can really study or think
at all, for anything else is a sheer attempt
to memorize words that are meaningless to
him. Now the proper assignment of the
lesson is the first or preparatory step of
instruction, and enables the pupil to com
plete fairly well the next step, or presenta
tion, without the further aid of the teacher.
The assignment of the lesson also involves
the review of preceding lessons in the
light of the added knowledge which the
pupil has gained from his most recent
study, and may thus afford him the best
possible opportunity to apply his know
ledge as he acquires it. The purpose of
the recitation lesson, then, will not be to
discount the pupil's efforts at independent
study by treating the lesson which he has
faithfully prepared from the textbook as
entirely new matter to be c prepared for ',
'presented', 'compared', and 'generalized'.
Of course the teacher should review these
processes sufficiently well to test the pupil's
preparation, suggest comparisons, clear up
misapprehensions, strengthen the weak

( 0 359 ) 7

98 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

places, and call for the restatement of defi
nitions and principles; but the greater part
of the recitation period should be given
to illustrative work, to comparison and
generalization, to applying the facts and
principles learned from the book to new
cases, and to a careful assignment of the
next lesson. Where the next lesson assign
ment introduces a new topic, it may be
wise to give nearly the whole of the recita
tion period to the one step of preparation.
Thus it will be seen that when the formal
steps in instruction are applied to textbook
lessons, the step of preparation is the one
that belongs most peculiarly to the recita
tion lesson, and that it practically consti
tutes the proper assignment of the lesson.
It is clear that the assigning of a lesson
will, as a rule, dominate the pupil's method
of study, and therefore determine his habits
of thinking. There is no doubt that the
careless, thoughtless, haphazard way in
which lessons are assigned is largely re
sponsible for the average pupil's inefficiency
in study. The ordinary method of assign
ing an arithmetic lesson is to give out so
many problems to be solved. The result
is that pupils simply read the rule with no
comprehension of the principles on which

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 99

it is based, look over the model solution
in the book, and then try to work the
other problems like it. c Doing sums' in
this way is not studying arithmetic. It is
at best only a shallow process of imitation
utterly stultifying in its effects. Getting
a lesson in history or geography, assigned
by pages, is usually a still less intelligent
process, since there are no model solutions
to imitate."

The five steps, then, are Preparation,
Presentation, Comparison, Generalization,
Application. Herbart himself states them
thus : Instruction " must care equally and
in regular succession for clearness of every
particular (preparation and presentation), for
association of the manifold, for coherent
ordering of what is associated (general
ization), and for a certain practice in
progression through this order (applica
tion}".

The absolutely novel will not arrest and
hold the child's attention, since there are
no associated ideas to apper-

cc T«L i_- i_ • Preparation.

ceive it. " That which is new
is wondered at, but left unconsidered, or
condemned by judgment based on recollec
tion." Hence in breaking new ground the
teacher must analyse the existing contents

IOO JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

of the child's mind in order to discover
the presentations that are related to the
matter to be introduced. Through them
apperception will take place, and they are,
therefore, to be made vivid in conscious
ness, while other presentations sink below
the threshold. The analysis of the existing
contents of the child's mind is for the
teacher's own preparation, the focusing of
the apperceptive ideas and the repressing
of those not desired is done with the
class. A preliminary step is the stating of
the aim of the lesson, which itself starts
the gathering of the relevant ideas; "it",
says Rein, " the aim of the lesson has been
rightly put, it at once produces a flood of
thoughts in the pupil". These thoughts
have to be put through a process of selec
tion, ordering, and grouping, by means of
questioning and free contributions from
the class, the teacher guiding his pupils
towards the pressing back of the ideas
not wanted, and the concentration of those
necessary, for the lesson.

The essential old material having been

secured by this analysis, the new has now

to be brought forward in order

that a synthesis may take place,

the apperception of the new by the old.

HERB ART'S PEDAGOGY IOI

The teacher's great purpose at this stage
is to get clearness in the presentations, and
towards this all his resources of method
must be directed. This clearness involves,
in the first place, the child's own intuition,
or direct use of the senses, and, in the
second place, the child's advance beyond
immediate experience; "from the horizon
that bounds the eye, we can take measure
ments by which, through descriptions of
the next-lying territory, that horizon can
be enlarged". "This species of instruc
tion has but one law — to describe in such a
way that the pupil believes he sees what is
described." Therefore, the student's Eng
lish studies have an important bearing on
his preparation for teaching. From them
he ought to gain a command of the best
methods of describing, narrating, and ex
pounding, so as to lift his pupils beyond
the limits of sense-experience.1

The new presentations having been
fused with the old and the act of apper
ception being accomplished, the

Y .,, r i5. Association.

pupil s fresh incursion into the

empirical region, the region of experience,

is completed, and he has now to enter on

1 On this subject see my English Grammar and Composition,
PP- 3»8-355.

102 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

the next stage, the apprehension of the re
lations among the presentations, the search
for general notions. " The work of the
teacher ", says Dr. Colgrove, " is to sug
gest standards of comparison and correct
units of measure, to distinguish superficial
qualities from essential ones, to see that
the conclusions of the pupils are based
upon actual comparison and judgment,
to encourage pupils to correct their own
false conclusions by closer attention to
details and a re-examination of materials,
and to connect ideas by the higher thought
relations of similarity, design, cause and
effect rather than by mere contiguity in
time and space."

The next step is to formulate judgments
expressing the complete result of the pre
ceding steps. Thus, refer-

Generahzation. . r . r ,

ring to a series or lessons on
the Victoria Cross, Miss Dodd (Herbartian
Principles of Teaching) says : a The children
were all ready to suggest such generaliza
tions as cWe must face danger for the
sake of duty*. After listening to various
formulations from the children, the teacher
said they had all grasped the right idea,
but she would give it them in the words
of an English poet:

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 103

* Not once or twice in our rough island story,
The path of duty was the way of glory'.

In this step the law, truth, or rule having
been clearly brought out by skilful ques
tioning, it is formulated in such a way
that the whole group of details is ex
pressed in this formulation."

The final step is to apply the truth
learned, to test its value by

, . * . *, Application.

applying it to new cases, and

to make it vital by putting it to work on

the concrete.

Herbart himself, let it be said, re
garded his steps only as an instrument,
and did not intend that they should all
be elaborated, whatever the circumstances,
irrespective, for example, of the age of the
pupils.

The following example is taken from
Miss Dodd's Herbartian Principles of Teach
ing^ and is one of a series An Example of
prepared and given by the ther Five SteP«-
students of the Women's Training De
partment, the Owens College.

AIM. — How can a sea-captain or a sailor find the
position of his ship at sea?

I. Preparation. — Shape of the earth. A sphere.

It rotates from West to East.

It completes a rotation in twenty-four hours.

104 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

The earth is divided into 360° longitude.

The children gave these facts readily from their
knowledge gained in previous lessons.

II. Presentation. — (a) Light a candle, and hold an
orange on a knitting-needle before it so that the light
falls on it.

Half of it is in the full glare and half in the
shade.

The candle represents the sun, the orange the
earth. The part in the glare represents daylight, the
part in the shade night.

Which part is having noon ? The part exactly
opposite the light.

Cause the orange to rotate, and the pupils will
observe that various parts of the earth have noon at
different times.

Recapitulate. — Various parts of the earth have noon
at different times.

(b) Mark the meridian of Greenwich, and cause
the orange to revolve as the earth revolves on its axis,
and require the pupils to notice whether the eastern
or western portion has its noon first.

Recapitulate. — Places West of Greenwich have their
noon later than places East of Greenwich.

(c) Exact difference in time. — If it takes the earth
twenty-four hours to rotate through the 360 degrees,
how long will it take the earth to rotate through
i degree ?

1440 minutes

= _±± — = 4 minutes.

360

Recapitulation. — One degree of longitude is equal
to four minutes in time.

(a*) What will be the time at Bordeaux when it is
twelve o'clock at Greenwich?

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 1 05

Position of Bordeaux, West of Greenwich (refer to
the map). Being West, it will have its noon later
than Greenwich.

Bordeaux is i° West of Greenwich, therefore it
will be 11.56 at Bordeaux when it is 12 o'clock at
Greenwich.

Problems. — What time is it at Genoa when it is
1 2 o'clock at London ?

What time is it at New York when it is 12 o'clock
at Greenwich?

What time is it at Greenwich when it is 4 o'clock
at Bombay?

(e) Examine places near the same meridian.

Examples found on the map by pupils : —

London and Timbucktu.
Pekin and Perth in Australia.
Berlin and Capetown.

Recapitulation. — Places on the same meridian have
noon at the same time. General recapitulation of
the matter in presentation.

III. Association. — Associate with knowledge of pre
vious lessons on Latitude, method of finding the time
by observing the altitude of the sun, use of Chrono
meter and Sextant.

How can we discover the time of a certain place ?
By knowing the longitude.

How can a sailor find the longitude? By knowing
the Greenwich time and comparing with the ship's
time.

How can a sailor know the Greenwich time ? By
consulting a chronometer.

How can he find the ship's time? By observing
the altitude of the sun.

Why is a knowledge of longitude not enough to

106 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

fix the position of the ship ? Longitude only shows
how far the ship is East or West of a given point.
Pekin and Perth in Australia are in the same longi
tude.

What fixes its position North or South of Equator?
Latitude.

How does the sailor find his latitude? By dis
covering the sun's altitude and by consulting a
Nautical Almanack.

Having found his longitude and latitude, what
must he do further? Consult his chart or map.

IV. Generalization. — The exact position of a ship
may be discovered by obtaining a correct observation
of the longitude and latitude, and finding the exact
point on a map or chart.

V. Application. — A number of problems bearing
upon a knowledge of latitude, longitude, and arith
metic were given to be solved.

While all this leads directly to intellectual

culture, that itself is subordinate, although

the means, to the supreme end

Moral Culture. c , . ,

or education — morality, the
formation of the good will. "The good
•will — the steady resolution of a man to con
sider himself as an individual under the law
which is universally binding — is the ordi
nary, and rightly the first, thought which
the word morality suggests." Will is " the
seat of character, naturally not the change
able wishes and moods of the will, but
its uniformity and firmness, that whereby

HERB ART'S PEDAGOGY IO/

it is determinately this and no other. That
kind of the determination we Called char
acter — that which a man wills as compared
with that which he wills not"\ character-
building is thus will-building. The edu
cator has to undertake this great work of
character - building from the foundation.
"The child enters the world without a
will of its own, and is therefore incapable
of any moral relation. At first, instead of
a true will, which renders the child capable
of determination, there is only a wild im
petuosity, impelling it hither and thither,
a principle of disorder disturbing the plans
of the adults, and placing the future per
sonality of the child itself in manifold
dangers." Instead of this wild impetuosity
we have to develop a fixity of purpose,
but any kind of stability will not do, since
there may be an evil determination, and
hence the character must be moralized, and
its strength must be moral. The will or
character has two parts, the objective, the
will that exists prior to self-observation;
and the subjective, which grows up along
side of self-observation and out of acts of
willing and moral judgments ; this is the
commanding will which gradually develops
the "slow pressure which men call con-

IO8 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

science". The growth of this will is aided
by what Herbart calls "memory of the
will". "A man whose will does not, like
ideas held in the memory, spontaneously
reappear as the same as often as the occasion
recurs — a man who is obliged to carry him
self back by reflection to his former reso
lution will have great trouble in building
up his character. And it is because con
stancy of will is not often found in children
that discipline has so much to do." This
is simply the apperception mass function
ing as will spontaneously and without re
flection. A similar occasion, or presentation,
stirs into activity the will-picture of the
previous occasions, and, if the decision is
the same as before, the picture gains in
vividness ; if not, there is a feeling of a
lack of harmony between the subjective
and the objective will, that which deter
mines and that which is determined, and
this feeling may take the acute form of
remorse. The habit of doing the right
thing tends to the doing of the right
thing, only Herbart demands insight and
interest as well as action.

As we have seen, Herbart rejects the
notion of a soul possessing transcendental
freedom — able, that is, to will what it

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY IOQ

ought independently of all experience;
he also rejects the idea of a reason that
addresses imperative commands Morality the
to the will. The will springs Result of
from the circle of thought, E*perience.
which again is built up by presentations,
which are the result of experience; it
is the growth from single acts of willing,
each of which contains a desire and a
conviction that it can be realized ; but
desires are simply aspects of ideas, and
hence the importance of the ideas in the
mind.

As the character is built up on right
lines there gradually emerge five great
Moral Ideas — Inner Freedom, The Moral
Perfection, Benevolence, Right, Weal-
Equity. Inner Freedom is that harmony
between moral insight and will which arises
when our impulses and actions are ruled
by our knowledge of the Good; to be free
is to be true to our better self; obviously
the excellence of this freedom depends on
the penetration of our insight. Perfection
belongs to the will in action, intense, con
centrated, spreading its power over many
objects ; again, the excellence of this de
pends on the penetration of our moral
insight. While Inner Freedom and Per-

110 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

faction belong to individual morality,
Benevolence, Right, and Equity belong
to Social Morality ; they refer to those
situations where one will seeks to satisfy
the will of others, or the clash of wills is
adjusted by law, or the doing of good or

111 calls for reward or punishment. These
moral ideas, which become governing prin
ciples, spring from action and reflection ;
they ultimately acquire the force of intui
tive aesthetic judgments, which we submit
to without feeling the necessity of chal
lenging their ground or authority. Just as
thoroughbass asks and wins for its simple
intervals, harmonies and progressions, ab
solute judgments without explaining or
proving anything, so we can transfer to
the relationships of will an approval or dis
approval like those existing for the relation
ships of notes.

Mr. A. B. D. Alexander gives a syn
opsis of the teaching of Socrates, some
To Know sentences °f which read very
is to be like the doctrine of Herbart.
Virtuous. virtue js knowledge, vice is

ignorance. What is done without in
sight does not deserve the predicate
"good". Goodness can be taught, be
cause it is a matter of knowledge. Were

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY III

virtue not knowledge, we could not be
instructed in it, nor should we be capable
of advancing from one stage to another.
Socrates went about seeking to convince
men not so much of sin as of ignorance.
Sin is error. Hence to show men their
ignorance is the first step towards right
actions. Socrates was not simply a good
man who sought to influence others for
good. On the other side hear Locke : " For
you must take this as a certain truth, that,
let children have what instructions you
will, and ever so learned lectures of breed
ing daily inculcated into them, that which
will most influence their carriage will be
the company they converse with, and the
fashion of those about them. Children
(nay and men too) do most by example.
We are all a sort of chameleons that still
take a tincture from things near us ; nor
is it to be wondered at in children, who
better understand what they see than what
they hear/' And again: "What a man is
to receive from education, what is to sway
and influence his life, must be something
put into him betimes ; habits woven into
the very principles of his nature, and not
a counterfeit carriage; and dissembled
outside, put on by fear only to avoid the

112 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

present anger of a father who perhaps may
disinherit him".

The student of Herbart does not admit
that his teaching ignores either example or
habit. The child's experience and inter
course give him his ideas of Providence,
" whom he pictures after the image of his
parents, and whom he worships after their
example " ; " the teacher himself will be to
the pupil an object of experience, at once
as fruitful as it is direct "; " absent historic
or poetic characters must receive life from
the life of the teacher"; "the governed
and the governor, the teacher and the
taught, are persons who live with, and in
evitably affect, each other agreeably or dis
agreeably"; "the youth of sixteen begins
to take on himself the teacher's work ;
he has partly appropriated his point of
view, he accepts it, and marks out for
himself his course accordingly; he manages
himself, and compares this self-treatment
with that which continually fell to his lot
from the teacher ". Yet there is danger
here. "The teacher's requirements must
not become the pupil's constant thought.
For not these, but the true relationships
of things ought to be the motive of his
actions, and the principle of his idea.

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 113

This applies to early youth. Even little
children learn to mingle the by-thoughts
they have of the people about them in all
they do, to such an extent that they are
no longer capable of an unmixed feeling."
In his history of Loretto School Mr. Tris
tram, speaking of Almond's influence, says:
" The ipse dixit of the Head had so much
force with his disciples that it became a
real source of weakness to his creed. It
stopped boys from thinking for them
selves." This happened although Almond
abhorred conventionality, believed that the
training of character is the first and most
important work of a schoolmaster, and that
this includes discussion of moral questions,
and aimed at making his school " a com
munity visibly living according to the
dictates of right reason ". Herbart duly
valued experience, but he would have the
child interpret it by the aid of his circle of
thought. As regards habit, it underlies
the whole of Herbart's teaching. The
formation of the will, that is, of character,
depends on insight, interest, desire, and
action ; " action generates the will out of
desire ". Habitual knowing precedes
habitual doing ; discipline " works on the
circle of thought, predisposing that circle

(0859) 8

114 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

to adopt certain interests, and thereby co
operating in the determination of char
acter"; it creates or does not create,
" through action or inaction, as the case
may be, a beginning of character ". Edu
cation has to promote habitual thinking on
the right lines, and to see that is followed
by habitual actions.

" The heart will be best trained by the
gradual guidance of all feelings and by
Moral lessons of morality, which, since
Lesson*, they must never present difficulties
to the intellect, must be carefully suited to
the age of the child, and never interrupted,
because the moral feeling needs increasingly
better nourishment. This moral feeling
must be given through various interesting
representations, which by the approval or
disapproval they arouse will lead the child
to form principles for himself." This
doctrine is strongly opposed by those that
think direct moral teaching is wholly ob
jectionable, and who rely on the influence
of the school buildings, the traditions, tone
and corporate life of the school, games and
social intercourse, the personality of the
teacher, the curriculum, methods of in
struction and discipline and such like; but,
in the opinion of Professor Sadler, " there

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 115

is a general agreement among experienced
teachers that direct moral instruction, when
given at the right time, and in the right
way, is a valuable element in moral educa
tion ". The Herbartian position is really
this, that whatever good is practised should
be understood, but how the understanding
is to be secured is to be determined by the
teacher, who knows all the circumstances.
But there must be understanding; me
chanical habits belong to the environment
that produces them, and decay in a totally
different environment.

There is a period prior to that when
moral culture is practicable, and during
which the child must be sub- Governmcnt
jected to restraint. " It is ob- and
vious that the object of child DisciPHne-
government is manifold; partly avoidance
of harm both for others and for the child
himself in the present and the future,
partly avoidance of strife as an evil in
itself, finally avoidance of collision in which
society finds itself forced into a contest for
which it is not perfectly authorized. It all
amounts to this, that such government has
properly no aim to attain in the child's
soul, but only has to create a spirit of
order." The means of government are

Il6 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

occupation, supervision, threats, compul
sion, including corporal punishment ; its
tone is short and sharp, admitting of
no questioning, and enforcing obedience.
Even at this stage, however, corporal
punishments of all kinds are to be used
rarely and with full consideration of the
individual punished, and the teacher must
always anticipate the time when obedi
ence can be associated with the child's
own will; in other words, love as well as
authority must guide. But while govern
ment may develop a formal morality,
"respect for the relationships we find
outside our own individuality", it cannot
educate, for education means that the in
dividual finds " the general law in his own
consciousness". Discipline has this in
common with government, that it works
directly on the mind ; with instruction,
that its aim is culture. " Direct action on
the youthful mind with a view to form, is
discipline," but this direct influence must
enlarge the circle of thought and stimulate
to those actions that develop will. Mere
swaying of the feelings is of little value.
" Never ought the teacher to hope any
thing from mere agitation. It would be a
misfortune were a wild schoolboy, chastised

HERB ART'S PEDAGOGY 117

one hour for his pranks, not to be up to
similar ones the next — a misfortune if his
will were so weak and wavering. For
then everything accomplished by education
would yield in the same easy manner to
external circumstances and their impres
sions. Obstinacy is to be welcomed, for
it can be bent. It is only selfishness and
malevolence which should not be toler
ated." Discipline has a twofold function;
it makes instruction possible, and it works
on the circle of thought, predisposing that
circle to adopt certain interests; for its
purpose it needs constraint, compulsion,
rewards, and punishments. It is "con
tinuous, persevering, slowly penetrating,
and only ceasing by degrees. It must
not affect the mind crookedly, must not
be felt as acting against its aims. Disci
pline finds room only so far as an inward
experience persuades its subjects to sub
mit to it willingly." In other words,
unlike the constraints of government, to
which the child submits because he must,
those of discipline are accepted because
he wills. Necessarily so, for the child
has become an adult guiding himself by
reason, and the teacher has to prepare
for his own supersession. "Well-earned

Il8 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

approbation, quietly but abundantly given
out of a full heart, is the spring upon
which the force of an abundant, convincing,
carefully apportioned blame^ emphasized by
the most varied application, must work,
until the time arrives when the pupil
possesses both praise and blame within
himself, and can guide and impel himself
by their means." Then the restraining,
determining, regulating influence of disci
pline has done its work. Education, there
fore, has three instruments — instruction,
government, discipline.

A word or two may be said about two
developments of the Herbartian school —
Correlation and " the concentration centres
Culture Epochs. and the culture epochs".
The first is an application of Herbart's
emphasis on unity if pupils are not to
be "scatter-brained"; the second demands
that the material of instruction should
be in harmony with the psychological
development of the child. The idea of
building the whole curriculum round one
or more subjects admits of being worked
out with excellent results; so ' that, for
example, the pupil does not feel on enter
ing the manual workshop that he has
broken completely with the history class.

HERBART'S PEDAGOGY 119

Mr. Tristram, speaking of the correlation
of the sciences at Loretto, quotes Professor
J. J. Thomson as speaking of the delight
and surprise of the wrangler who discovers
in the laboratory that his calculations in
optics are actually true. "The average
mathematical student would not back a
formula for sixpence." The theory of the
culture epochs, that the stages of culture in
the development of the race are paralleled
by the stages of mental development in the
individual, is a doubtful hypothesis; but it
has value as suggesting suitable material
for the successive stages of instruction.
On these two topics see Chapter VII of
The Demonstration School Record, No. i,
1908, edited by Professor Findlay.

What Bishop Mylne said of Almond
of Loretto is wonderfully true of Herbart.
"On the purely practical side,

T , , , * J ,. . J Conclusion.

I should sum up his special
characteristics as consisting in an intense
belief that education must be one great
whole, including every part of one's being
— that character can be trained only if
body, soul, and spirit are all being edu
cated together; that mental and bodily
health are not two things, but one; that
every man can best serve God by making

120 JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART

the very most of himself, and that c him
self includes, ex hypothesi, his soul and
his brain and his muscles; and that, when
this complex being has been developed in
its highest perfection, it can be offered to
God only by being used for the benefit
of man".

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370.1 H534 W721 c.1

Williams # Johann
Friedrich Herbart : a stu

30005020301506

370.1

H534

W721

Williams

Johann Friedrich Herbart